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THE NATIONS AT WAR 



THE 

NATIONS AT WAR 

THE BIRTH OF A 

NEW ERA 



BY 



L. CECIL JANE 




MCMXIV 

LONDON: J. M. DENT y SONS LTD. 
NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. 



PREFACE 

A hundred years ago, the last general European 
war effected the overthrow of a military despotism. 
Great expectations were then formed of the dawn 
of a new era; they came to nothing, owing to 
the blunders or crimes of the victors. To-day a 
similar conflict is occurring, similar hopes are 
aroused. Many confidently predict that such 
hopes will be once more falsified; they despair 
of the future of the race, and give full rein to 
their pessimism. But that pessimism is un- 
justified. In the last century, mankind has 
made some progress; the democracy in every 
land has learned something of its power. That 
power can be used for good, and will be so used, 
if the many do not despair of themselves. The 
allies can be forced to remain true to the high 
ideals which they have professed; their victory 
may be the dawn of a brighter era. Unless 
mankind has lived in vain, that dawn is certain. 
It will be hastened in proportion as optimism 
prevails over pessimism, in proportion as the 
many are convinced of their ability to ensure that 



vi THE NATIONS AT WAR 

the progress of mankind shall not be again 

interrupted. It is the purpose of this book to 

show what are the possibilities of good in the 

present war, what will be the characteristics of 

that new era to which it will give birth. If it 

does something to increase the determination of 

the many to eliminate those factors, which in the 

past have led to war, it will not have been written 

in vain. 

L. CECIL JANE. 

71 High Street, Oxford, 
October 19 14. 






CONTENTS 











PAGE 


I. 


The Character of the War 


1 


II. 


The General Results of the War . 


2 4 


III. 


The War and International Politics 


46 


IV. 


Imperial Politics .... 


65 


V. 


Internal Politics in England . 


83 


VI. 


Internal Politics in other Countries 


E05 


VII. 


Militarism ...... 


129 


VIII. 


Economic Conditions 






I48 


IX. 


Athleticism 






166 


X. 


Feminism 




. 


177 


XI. 


Culture 






186 


XII. 


Religion 




. 


I96 


XIII. 


Social Reform . 




. 


206 


XIV. 


The Future of the R 


ace 


. 


217 



Vll 



THE NATIONS AT WAR 



THE CHARACTER OF THE WAR 

The world is to-day involved in the greatest 
catastrophe of its history. For the moment, 
indeed, the full extent of the disaster is not 
realised. It is with reluctance that men abandon 
long-formed habits; even in the gravest crises, 
life follows something of its normal course, save in 
those areas which are immediately affected. But 
every day the situation must be better appre- 
ciated. The sorrow which millions are already 
enduring, and which millions more must endure 
before the end comes, must come nearer and 
nearer to the life of each individual, until at last 
the veriest dullard will understand. The world 
of yesterday has passed away, never to return; 
another world is in the making. Mankind is 
suffering the birth-pangs of a new life, of a life 
which, whether it be better or whether it be 
worse, will at least be distinct from that which 

has been lived. 

a 



2 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

That the new life will also be a better life is at 
once the hope and the conviction of mankind. 
The misery of war is hardly doubted. Few, if 
any, would deny its existence ; few would dispute 
that in an ideal state of society those ends which 
are now attained by war would be attained by 
some less violent and destructive means. But 
the existing order is not ideal, and wars still occur. 
A belief exists that the ultimate good to be gained 
outweighs the misery which must first be endured ; 
nations enter upon war, not because they seek 
their own hurt, but because they hope for some 
great recompense. 

Such is the belief and the hope; their justifica- 
tion is less easy to discover. Such gains as may 
obviously be made seem hardly to counterbalance 
the losses which must be sustained. Territory 
may be annexed, affording a prospect of new 
outlets for trade or for a surplus population, 
offering hope of greater immunity from foreign 
attack. Yet the same outlets can be secured 
often, if not always, by peaceful means. A 
surplus population can readily emigrate and 
inhabit the waste places of the world. And hope 
of freedom from fear of attack is too generally 
falsified. It was upon such a ground that Alsace- 
Lorraine was annexed; its annexation has 



CHARACTER OF THE WAR 3 

burdened two nations with a weight of arma- 
ments. France has armed that she may recover, 
Germany that she may retain, the conquered 
provinces; to neither has peace or any sense of 
security come. 

New markets may be gained by war. But 
those wars by which the development of hitherto 
neglected lands has been made possible have not 
generally entailed a conflict between civilised 
states. Great Britain possesses a vast colonial 
empire; she has done more than has any other 
state to open up and to develop lands formerly 
inhabited by races unwilling or unable to profit 
from them. But though wars have been under- 
taken for the preservation, and for the extension, 
of that empire, its foundation and its develop- 
ment have been the result rather of the arts of 
peace. Between colonisation and war there is 
indeed a fundamental distinction; the former 
suggests the penetration and development by the 
more progressive elements of the human race of 
lands hitherto neglected, the latter implies the 
struggle of progressive races for those lands which 
are already developed. Colonial wars, in fact, 
have largely resulted from a mistaken belief, from 
the idea that political possession is necessary for 
the possession of a market. That idea impelled 



4 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

Edward III. to enter upon the Hundred Years' 
War with France ; it was discarded by the Tudors, 
and its falsity has been abundantly illustrated by 
the history of the South American states. Trade 
may follow the flag; it follows much more truly 
the course which economic necessity suggests. 

Nor is there any great element of truth in the 
suggestion that by means of war the best qualities 
in a race are developed. No nation has been 
more warlike than were the French from the 
period of the invasion of Italy by Charles VIII. to 
the close of the age of Louis XIV. Yet it was in 
that very period that all the abuses which at last 
produced the Revolution were stereotyped; it 
was a period in which the nobles grew ever more 
selfish, when the morals of the nation persistently 
deteriorated, when the kings and courtiers were 
consistently royal, consistently indifferent to the 
welfare of those whom they professed to rule and 
whom they actually pillaged. A war of indepen- 
dence, a war in which a small people resolved to 
gain freedom has resisted with success the mili- 
tary power of some tyrant, must strengthen the 
character of a race. But it is not the war which 
really produces this result; it is the sentiment of 
liberty, the hatred of tyranny, the denial of the 
right of any man or of any body of men to rule 



CHARACTER OF THE WAR 5 

unless by the divine sanction of popular support. 
Historically, it is idle to suggest that the mere 
fact of fighting, of gratifying those brute instincts 
which impel a man to kill his fellows, has any 
beneficial effect upon national character. Rather, 
war serves to call into vigorous life the more 
degraded instincts of mankind. Rapine and 
violence become general; the morals of an army 
in the field will rarely bear investigation. For 
every man who learns the virtue of endurance, a 
hundred learn the delights of licence. 

Yet war has continued ; the vision of universal 
and enduring peace has appeared to be as far 
distant as ever. Civilisation has made progress; 
a new and better era has seemed to be about to 
dawn. But at the very moment when hopes are 
raised to the highest pitch, a period of retrogres- 
sion has constantly occurred; a new war has 
devastated the world, and men have been moved 
to exclaim with the prophet of old that they are 
no better than their fathers. To-day an age of 
peace has ended in a welter of strife. The very 
nations which have been in the forefront of 
progress have once more bent their energies to 
the service of destruction, and a pessimist may 
well declare that all the vaunted advance has 
been vain, that the dominion of the intellect over 



6 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

brutish passions is no more real now than it was 
in the days of Attila and his Huns. 

But in the midst of darkness a ray of light 
may be discovered. Resembling earlier conflicts 
in many respects, the present war yet possesses 
something of a distinctive character; it is more 
emphatically a war of ideals, and those ideals 
are far more clearly defined. Nor is this all. In 
those ideals there is something new, something 
which, by its very difference from the past, sug- 
gests ground for confidence in the future. Though 
the ultimate end to be secured is that end which 
has always been sought, the means now adopted 
seem to be in a measure distinct, and seem to 
argue at least some modification in the nature 
of man. 

All through their history, nations, like in- 
dividuals, have sought happiness; their relations 
with each other have been determined by their 
conception as to the means by which the desired 
goal may be reached. In the Middle Ages, it 
was the hope of mankind that happiness might 
be won by some submission to a supposed vice- 
gerent of God. The hope was falsified by the 
struggle between Empire and Papacy; the 
period ended in the anarchy of the Reformation, 
in an age of almost unceasing war. For centuries 



CHARACTER OF THE WAR 7 

the continent remained distracted and troubled, 
until at last the peril of Napoleonic despotism 
drove the states of Europe to seek once more 
for a means by which war might be ended. Four 
great powers leagued together to destroy the 
aggressor; they continued their union when its 
immediate purpose had been accomplished, and 
the Quadruple Alliance, though shaken by the 
struggles which marked the latter half of the 
nineteenth century, was, in effect, revived and 
extended in the recent Concert of Europe. The 
six leading states became imperfectly united in 
an effort to prevent conflict and to give rest to 
the world. 

Between the members of this concert mutual 
distrust reigned. It was based less on amity 
than on fear; less on mutual regard than on 
mutual jealousy. Each member watched the 
others, trembling lest a momentary relaxation 
of care might afford its professed friends an 
opportunity for attack, might involve the loss 
of an occasion to deal some fatal blow against 
a rival. The renewal of war was anticipated; 
there was no real hope of continued peace. 
Armaments were constantly increased; the Triple 
and the Dual Alliances were concluded to guard 
against the coming crisis. 



8 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

But though no real unity was attained, the 
concert did suffice to postpone the crisis for some 
forty years. The Egyptian and Cretan questions 
were settled without war, even though the 
concord of the powers was disturbed and their 
reputation impaired by their sluggish ineptitude. 
The duration of the Turco-Greek War was limited, 
its consequences minimised; the quarrel between 
France and Germany over Morocco was stifled, 
though not extinguished. Europe continued to 
slumber uneasily ; nightmare followed nightmare ; 
but she did not actually awake to the reality of 
war. 

Nevertheless, the concert grew persistently 
weaker; its members grew less and less inclined 
to believe in the merit of the system to which 
they rendered lip service. A suggestion that 
means might be found to limit warlike prepara- 
tions was met with the gravest suspicion; the 
chief result of the Hague Conference seemed to 
be a redoubling of precautions against possible 
aggression by its author. Diplomatists might 
soothe themselves by the repetition of convenient 
phrases; it might be almost indecent to hint 
in the chancelleries of Europe that there was 
any lack of cordiality between the great 
powers. But nothing was more certain than 



CHARACTER OF THE WAR 9 

that the concert must sooner or later collapse; 
its preservation was only secured by the diligent 
postponement of all decisive questions, by silence 
upon all controversial topics. 

It was left for Italy to put the concert to the 
test, and to reveal to the world its entire unreality. 
Ever since the Congress of Berlin, the efforts of 
the concert had been primarily directed to 
prevent the individual action of any one of its 
members in the Near East. Italy, eager to obtain 
for herself the last available field for expansion 
on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, 
declared war upon the Ottoman Empire, without 
securing the approval even of her colleagues in 
the Triple Alliance. She asserted the right of a 
great power to act upon its own initiative, and 
the war of Tripoli marks the real dissolution of 
the concert. It is true that, in deference to the 
idea of that concert, Italy abstained from making 
full use of her overwhelming naval superiority; 
the Adriatic and the neighbourhood of the Dar- 
danelles were practically excluded from the 
sphere of active operations, and no attempt was 
made to end Turkish resistance by attacks upon 
Constantinople or Smyrna. But the Treaty of 
Lausanne was concluded by the belligerents 
without reference to the powers; a Near Eastern 



io THE NATIONS AT WAR 

problem was settled by a single state which ignored 
the European concert. 

And the example set by Italy was speedily 
followed. For years the apparent certainty of 
intervention by the powers had served to dis- 
courage the Balkan states from attempting to 
profit from the increasing weakness of the 
Ottoman Empire; it seemed to be inevitable 
that they would be deprived of the fruits of 
victory even if they triumphed in the field. The 
occasion presented by the revolution which 
overthrew Abdul Hamid was permitted to pass; 
even the incapacity of Young Turk rule did not 
lead at once to any rupture of the peace of the 
Near East. But the action of Italy threw a new 
light on the situation; the Balkan allies rapidly 
availed themselves of the opportunity offered. 

The concert protested; it made no effort to 
enforce its protest. From their original position 
that the status quo must in all circumstances be 
maintained, the powers retreated to acquiescence 
in its destruction. And this evidence of weak- 
ness was soon followed by another and more 
remarkable example. Ambassadors in conference 
revised the terms of the Treaty of London. The 
Enos-Midia frontier was assigned to Turkey; 
Adrianople was given to Bulgaria; the kingdom 



CHARACTER OF THE WAR n 

of Albania was created; the question of the 
islands was reserved; Montenegro was coerced. 
But the Balkan states quarrelled among them- 
selves as to the division of almost unexpected 
booty. A new war destroyed the recent treaty; 
Rumania intervened and dictated terms of peace ; 
the powers accepted the fait accompli. Their 
action had resulted in little more than a partial 
restriction of Greece, and in vain efforts to main- 
tain their helpless protege, the Mpret. 

The concert was thus both discredited and 
dissolved. The great powers had attempted 
and had failed to preserve the peace of Europe, 
and consequently, if the continent were not to 
sink into anarchy, into a condition of perpetual 
war and fear of war, some new means had to 
be discovered by which the turbulent elements 
might be held in check. Nor could there be any 
doubt as to the nature of the means to be tried. 
The concert had relied upon coercion, upon 
the impression of their overwhelming military 
strength; the concert had failed. It was in- 
evitable that the alternative method of assent 
should be adopted. 

But though the system of the concert has been 
rejected, though it is generally admitted that the 
new system must rest upon assent, this does not 



12 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

argue complete agreement on the nature of that 
system. For assent may be of two kinds. It 
may be that assent which is given to the leader- 
ship of some single power; it may be the assent 
of equals. The new system may be monarchical 
or republican in character, aristocratic or demo- 
cratic. To decide this question, the present war 
is being fought. It is a conflict of ideals, a war 
of convictions. It may be admitted that to the 
ruling classes in some or all of the powers engaged 
the struggle has a different meaning; to the 
masses of the people it is an effort to discover 
means by which peace may be secured, by which 
civilisation and happiness may be preserved or 
attained. 

In the past, assent has been freely given to the 
domination or guidance of a single power. After 
the collapse of the Roman Empire, Europe was 
threatened by endless anarchy; she found salva- 
tion in submission to a German king. Charles 
the Great destroyed the liberties of Aquitaine and 
Bavaria; he extinguished the independence of 
Lombards and Saxons. But he did so as the 
enemy of barbarism ; he was the armed champion 
of Christianity and of civilisation, and as such he 
was recognised by the world. Throughout the 
Middle Ages, free assent was given to the mediat- 



CHARACTER OF THE WAR 13 

ing power of Emperor or Pope. Even in the 
stormiest moments of a stormy period, men whose 
chief interest and joy in life was fighting observed 
the Peace of God and the Truce of God at the 
bidding of unarmed priests. But this unity of 
Christendom was shattered by the growth of 
national kingdoms and still more of national 
churches; even before the Reformation the Pope 
had become a party to the conflicts which dis- 
tracted mankind, and was no longer accepted as 
a mediator. 

From the resultant anarchy, a way of escape 
was sought in the creation of a concert of Europe, 
an idea which gradually developed. But the 
concert has now failed, and once more the con- 
tinent appears to be faced by the prospect of 
perpetual war. German thinkers regard the way 
of escape as evident ; they seek in effect to return 
to the mediaeval system. A complete return is, 
indeed, rendered impossible by the very existence 
of national states and of national churches; 
however readily the nations of Europe may admit 
their common Christianity, they are certainly 
not prepared to admit the compulsory mediation 
of some ecclesiastic. But the continent has a 
common heritage in civilisation ; it has a common 
interest in preventing a relapse into barbarism. 



14 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

To many Germans, the danger of such a relapse 
appears to be very real. The Slav races are 
numerous; they are held in Germany to be 
barbaric, to threaten Europe as Europe was 
threatened by Asiatic hordes in the Middle Ages. 
The continent must be roused to a sense of this 
danger; it must recognise that in Germany alone 
it can find the armed champion who will save the 
common heritage of mankind. It would be a 
misunderstanding of the German character to 
suppose that in making this claim they are 
insincere. Prussian militarists may design to 
establish a despotism over Europe; the German 
people have no such desire. They are convinced 
that their mission is real; they believe that their 
armies are fighting the battle of civilisation; they 
lay waste Europe that Europe may be delivered 
from a worse fate, that it may be saved from itself. 
But Europe has not been so convinced. Other 
nations have proved sceptical both as to the 
excellence of German culture and as to the reality 
of the Slav peril. They find no just cause for 
a return to the system of Charles the Great ; they 
do not conceive that German domination is the 
only, or the true, path to salvation. The allies 
have accepted the principle of assent, but they 
interpret that principle in a different manner. 



CHARACTER OF THE WAR 15 

To them it does not imply any measure of coercion 
but the recognition of equality. In the past, the 
smaller states have been too much disregarded; 
in future, they must receive due recognition. 
Hence they have taken up arms to prevent the 
realisation of German aims, to secure instead the 
triumph of their own ideal. They stand forth as 
the champions of the lesser states, of Serbia and 
of Belgium; they stand for the principle of 
equality of right ; they deny that right should be 
measured by might. To the monarchical concep- 
tion of the Germans they oppose a republican 
conception; to the idea of a Teutonic aristocracy 
they oppose the idea of an international democ- 
racy. They would allow to others that liberty 
which they themselves enjoy; they are the 
champions of toleration. 

And in this conflict of ideals, that ideal which 
the allies represent will triumph. So much is 
clear, if the true cause of victory in war be under- 
stood. That cause is not to be found in the factors 
to which it is sometimes attributed. It has often 
been asserted that God fights on the side of the 
big battalions, that numbers must win. There 
are, however, innumerable instances to the 
contrary. At Marathon and Plataea, at Phar- 
salia and Philippi, the larger army was defeated. 



16 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

Attila failed at Chalons, Charles Martel triumphed 
at Tours. It has almost been the rule that those 
triumphs which have established the reputation 
of the English army have been gained in spite of 
inferiority in numbers. In those battles which 
have been termed decisive, from Marathon to 
Waterloo, it is almost true to say that the smaller 
force has generally been victorious. 

Nor does history justify the view that victory 
is the result of purely military efficiency, either 
in the commander or in his soldiers. It may 
perhaps be argued that the only proof of capacity 
in a general is that he is victorious, that defeat 
proves incapacity. Yet there is reason to doubt 
any assertion that superior generalship necessarily 
triumphs. A study of the operations before 
Dyrrhachium suggests that Pompey was a greater 
master of the science of war than was Caesar, but 
Pompey was overwhelmed at Pharsalia. Wallen- 
stein outgeneralled Gustavus Adolphus prior to 
the battle of Liitzen. Napoleon was assuredly a 
far greater general than Wellington. 

And if the efficiency of the soldiers, as opposed 
to that of the general, be considered, it is once 
more clear that no inevitable cause of victory 
can be found here. In the past, trained armies 
have often been overthrown by armies which 



CHARACTER OF THE WAR 17 

were untrained. The levies of the Lombard 
cities defeated Frederic Barbarossa; the Swiss 
overcame the armies of the Habsburgs and of 
Charles the Bold. The Hussites repulsed the 
attacks of armies reputed to be the most efficient 
of the period ; the Dutch won their independence 
despite the excellence of the troops of Spain; 
the raw levies of revolutionary France proved 
able to defeat the experienced soldiers of Prussia 
and Austria. And the story of more than one 
South African battlefield illustrates the truth 
that the trained and disciplined army is not 
necessarily victorious. 

It would, indeed, be idle to contend that 
numbers, generalship and military efficiency 
count for nothing, that they are not factors which 
tend to make for success. But it would be 
equally idle to contend that either in one or all 
of them is to be found the true ultimate factor. 
There remains something above and beyond, 
something which may more than counterbalance 
all the advantage to be derived from these factors. 
With the party which possesses this quality 
victory must eventually rest. 

So much has often been recognised, but the 
nature of the ultimate factor has been very 
generally misunderstood. It has been opti- 



1 8 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

mistically hoped, rather perhaps than believed, 
that the right must triumph. But history does 
not justify any such hope. Very often, indeed, 
it is impossible to determine which of the two ; 
parties in a conflict has the greater righteousness; j 
it is often rather a question of deciding which is ; 
the less iniquitous. When, however, it is possible 
to declare with some degree of confidence that 
the cause of one party is just and that of the other 
unjust, it is still all too frequently true that 
victory has waited upon wrongdoing. Most 
empires have been built up by means of un- ; 
provoked wars of aggression, by wars for which no 
moral justification is discoverable. Such exploits 
as the seizure of Silesia by Frederic the Great, or 
the partitions of Poland, can hardly be defended 
except on grounds of political necessity. Cam- 
paigns such as England's " opium war " against 
China barely admit even of this inadequate 
defence. Yet in these, and in numbers of other 
like cases, the sinner has profited and his sin has : 
escaped all obvious retribution. Righteousness 
is assuredly not the ultimate cause of victory. 

That cause, indeed, can be found only in the I 
possession of a certain moral quality which 
confers real greatness upon its possessor. Great- : 
ness, whether in the individual or in the nation, 



CHARACTER OF THE WAR 19 

does not consist in a sublime originality; those 
men who have perhaps been most original have 
left but little mark on history. It consists 
rather in ability to focus the spirit of the age, to 
give expression to those hopes and desires which 
in others are vainly struggling to find expression. 
The great statesman understands, instinctively, 
the spirit of his nation; he becomes for the 
moment the very embodiment of that spirit; 
his policy and measures are successful and 
beneficial, because he gives to the people that 
which they really desire. The great nation 
equally embodies the spirit of mankind; its 
policy is that which the world desires; it strives 
to attain the objects for which the human race 
is striving, and adopts the methods which the 
human race desires should be adopted. To such 
a nation falls victory, whether in peace or war. 
But if a nation labours to impede the natural 
development of mankind, if its policy is in 
opposition to the spirit of the age, then to it will 
come defeat and failure. 

History abounds with examples of nations 
which have so suffered defeat. Germany under 
Frederic Barbarossa strove to revive the moribund 
imperial idea; the coercion of the Lombard 
cities was to be the first step towards the forcible 



20 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

imposition of unity upon Europe. Spain under 
Charles V. and Philip II., France under Louis XIV. 
and Napoleon, made similar attempts. All alike 
failed; failed because Europe had progressed 
beyond the mediaeval idea, because, rightly or 
wrongly, it believed unity under a common head 
to be no longer either necessary or desirable, 
because national states prized highly their liberty 
and their complete independence. Once man- 
kind had accepted the very principle for which a 
Napoleon fought ; the perpetuation of the Roman 
Empire and the creation of the Holy Roman 
Empire were due to no other cause. But that 
day passed and those who strove to return to it 
were foredoomed to defeat. 

And in this war, no less than in the wars of 
the past, victory can only rest with those who 
most truly embody the spirit of the age, who 
champion that ideal to which mankind has, even 
if unconsciously, given its adhesion. The German 
ideal is clear ; the union of Europe under Teutonic 
leadership. But this is little more than a return 
to the system of the Middle Ages ; it is anachron- 
istic, nor is there any sign that the world is 
anxious to return to the age of Charles the Great. 
Such a return would involve submission to the 
domination of a single state. Acceptance of 



CHARACTER OF THE WAR 21 

German guidance, even if that guidance were 
I wholly altruistic and designed to promote nothing 
I save the welfare of mankind, would still involve 
! a sacrifice of some independence. There is no 
j sign of any willingness to make this sacrifice. 
! Even the mild control of the concert was resented 
j and resisted; individual states have been con- 
i stantly more eager to assert their right of private 
! judgment. 

Nor is there any evidence of a belief in the 
suitability of Germany for the position to which 
she aspires. However much the achievements 
of the German race in various departments of 
human knowledge may be admired and recognised, 
their political system has excited but little 
admiration. Those maxims of policy which 
have been laid down by German publicists have 
roused indignation rather than commanded assent, 
and the general attitude of neutral states towards 
Germany since the war began has not suggested 
any great desire on the part of mankind that 
victory should wait upon her arms. In fact, 
Germany has failed to appreciate, and still more 
fails to embody, the spirit of the age ; her methods 
and ideals are those of a far distant generation; 
she seeks to retard the development of mankind. 
On the other hand, it is clear that the allies 



22 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

advocate no outworn principle. In the past, 
the minor states have been very generally dis- 
regarded; attention has been paid only to those 
whose material strength compels respect. If the 
weaker nations have not been extinguished, they 
have owed their salvation less to any principle of 
policy than to the accidents of jealousy and self- 
interest. The Ottoman Empire has been pre- 
served, the Balkan states were largely created, 
because the powers found themselves unable to 
arrange any partition of the Sick Man's inherit- 
ance. But the allies have now declared them- 
selves to be the champions of the weak; they 
have made the cause of the lesser states their 
own, and by so doing they have introduced a 
new principle into international politics. For the 
first time, great powers have entered upon war 
deliberately and professedly for the sake of those 
who seemed to be unable to protect themselves. 
And this principle of policy is at least more in 
accord with the general sentiment of the world 
than is the principle expounded by Germany. 
Ever since the Middle Ages, the public opinion 
of the continent has been hostile to the supremacy 
of a single state. The history of Europe since the 
fall of Napoleon has been the history of the de- 
velopment of nationalism, of its recognition as a 






CHARACTER OF THE WAR 23 

factor which cannot be ignored. But nationalism 
affords the justification for the existence of small 
states; the nationalist cause is the cause of the 
weak, and is the cause for which the allies have 
taken up arms. Mankind has long sought means 
by which peace might be maintained; it has 
failed to find it in the guidance of a single state, 
or in a combination of the greater states to 
dictate to the lesser. There remains the last 
alternative, the recognition of equality of states, 
of equality of right. This alternative the allies 
support, and because it is also the alternative 
which satisfies the desire of the human race for 
freedom, victory will attend them. 



II 

THE GENERAL RESULTS OF THE WAR 

Since the allies have taken up arms in defence of 
the principle of equality, their victory, if they 
maintain their original position, will involve the 
victory of that principle. The continent will 
neither be directed by a few great powers nor 
controlled by a single dominant state; the equal 
rights of all nations will be recognised, the in- 
terest of all will be considered. History, how- 
ever, contains many instances in which the 
victors in a war have abandoned those principles 
for which they have appeared to fight. Their 
minds have been corrupted or their opinions 
modified by success; they have adopted the 
maxims of their defeated opponents, and victory 
has in effect rested with the conquered cause. 

One such instance is supplied by the history of 
that alliance by which Napoleon was overthrown. 
France attempted to impose her will upon Europe ; 
she was resisted and defeated. But the victorious 
allies forgot their original professions and ideals. 

They had combined to deliver the continent from 
24 



I 



GENERAL RESULTS OF THE WAR 25 



a despotism; they attempted to establish a 
| diplomatic tyranny even more complete and 
I perhaps more burdensome than that military 
I tyranny which they had destroyed. They in- 
voked the sentiment of nationality in their hour 
of stress; in their hour of triumph they ignored 
that sentiment. They had championed the rights 
of peoples against the dominion of force; upon 
force alone they ultimately relied to maintain 
their own ascendancy. That which has happened 
once may happen again ; the allies of to-day may 
be as untrue to their declared principles as were 
the allies of a century ago. 

But there is reason, amounting almost to 
certainty, for believing that they will not be so 
untrue. Despite many superficial points of 
resemblance, which have been very generally 
remarked, there are fundamental differences 
between that Quadruple Alliance which defeated 
Napoleon and the Triple Entente which will 
defeat William II. A hundred years ago the 
champions of European liberty were themselves 
unfree. Austria had never deviated from the 
path of absolutism; Joseph II. had been an 
ardent reformer, but his methods were auto- 
cratic in the extreme. Catherine II. of Russia 
had coquetted for a moment with the idea of 



26 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

representative government, but the French Revo- 
lution had cured her of any liberal tendencies. Her 
successors had rigidly maintained the existing 
despotic system; even Alexander I. had not been 
won over to the idea of abstract liberty at the 
moment when the last coalition was formed. In 
Prussia, the radical reforms of Stein had been 
abandoned; the more conservative ideas of 
Hardenberg had prevailed. And England was 
ruled by George III., who would " be king/' by a 
Prince Regent who personified all that was worst 
in the monarchical idea, by a Whig oligarchy 
turned Tory, by a ministry which included the 
author of the " Six Acts " and Eldon, most 
consistent enemy of every liberal principle. 

That such governments should distrust popular 
movements, and be suspicious of popular enthu- 
siasm, was only natural. Not resting upon full 
confidence between ruler and subject, but rather 
upon ingrained habits of submission, they had 
no love of liberty at home. They dared not call 
the people to their aid, even if they conceived 
that to do so was possible. The war was not a 
people's war in any true sense; it commanded 
the approval of the many, but that approval was 
not the outcome of appreciation of the cause for 
which the contest was being conducted. The 









GENERAL RESULTS OF THE WAR 27 

continent had wearied of French despotism, but 
men hardly expected to find any deliverance from 
tyranny, hardly aspired to secure such deliver- 
ance. They merely preferred a native to an 
alien tyrant. 

Nor were the principles of the Quadruple 
Alliance very clearly defined, or their motives 
distinguished by any particular purity. They 
were certainly pledged to destroy the domination 
of France. But they cared little or nothing for 
the rights of the smaller states; they were in- 
different to the coercion of the weak, provided 
that they were themselves permitted to coerce, 
provided that they were themselves free from 
coercion. Austria was willing, if not actually 
eager, to prevent the fall of Napoleon, if only she 
could recover the provinces which she had lost, 
or secure adequate compensation for them. The 
allies had as much will to dominate the continent 
as had France ; they merely lacked the power. 

In one aspect, indeed, the war against Napoleon 
was no more than a contest for dominion. Neither 
party to that war sincerely desired the liberation 
of the continent. " To divide the spoils of the 
vanquished " was the original, hardly less than 
the ultimate, aim of the allies; it was perhaps 
only diffidence as to the eventual outcome of the 



28 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

conflict which for a time led them to conceal 
their true purpose under a profession of liberal 
intentions. 

The allies to-day are acting from far purer 
motives; their principles are far more clearly 
defined. There is in them no disposition to 
ignore the rights of the smaller states. On the 
contrary, it was to defend those rights that they 
entered upon the war. The attempt of Austria 
to coerce Serbia led Russia to mobilise; the 
violation of Belgium led England to intervene. 
A declaration by the Tsar in favour of Polish 
liberty marked the earliest stages of the conflict, 
and though this might be regarded as a mere 
political move, calculated to embarrass Germany 
and Austria, there is no reasonable ground for 
supposing that the promises made will remain 
unfulfilled when victory has been won. 

Nor can the determination of France to recover 
Alsace and Lorraine be regarded as proof of selfish- 
ness. Those lands were annexed to the German 
Empire mainly with a political object. A wish 
to retain them served to reconcile the south 
German states to the dictation of their hereditary 
enemy; the Reichsland seemed to create a 
necessity justifying the whole Prussian military 
system. But so long as that system endures, so 



GENERAL RESULTS OF THE WAR 29 

long the German Empire will possess the power 
of aggression and will continue to aspire to domin- 
ate Europe. The retrocession of the provinces to 
France hence becomes the obvious means by 
which the end for which the alliance has been 
formed may be attained. Prussian militarism 
will have failed to accomplish the object for the 
accomplishment of which it has been permitted 
to exist; it will be discredited, and the German 
people forthwith be converted to acceptance of 
a system more in accord with their national 
character. 

The same argument applies to other territorial 
changes which may fairly be anticipated. The 
greatest obstacle to the full recognition of equality 
among the states of Europe comes from that 
repressive militarism of which Germany and, in 
a sense, Austria are the chief exponents. Possess- 
ing great armies and ruled by a military caste, 
they tend naturally to adhere to the doctrine that 
right is might; they tend naturally to desire to 
impose their will upon Europe, even though that 
desire may itself be prompted by a sincere belief 
that thus Europe will be benefited. Germany 
and Austria must be so reconstituted that they 
will abandon their present system, that their 
peoples will be both convinced of the excellence 



30 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

of change and able to enforce that conviction. 
And that this reconstitution may be effected, the 
political map of Europe must be redrawn. 

But to argue that because the allies will eventu- 
ally redraw that map, therefore their object in 
making war was to redraw it in their own interest, 
is to argue from a misunderstanding of the 
necessities of the situation. The allies will indeed 
reorganise the continent in their own interest, but 
that interest is assuredly the interest of all other 
states, both great and small. It does not prove 
any lack of purity of motive. 

And as the motives of the allies are purer than 
were those of the members of the Quadruple 
Alliance, so their internal organisation fits them 
better for the championship of liberty. England 
and France are countries in which popular in- 
fluence on government is recognised and has long 
been recognised as a fundamental principle. It 
is unthinkable that in either a government should 
exist which does not possess at least that degree of 
popular support which is implied in the possession 
of a majority in an elected legislative assembly. 

It may, indeed, be admitted that in no state 
can a government exist which is not at least 
ultimately supported by the political majority 
of the nation, by the majority, that is, of those 



GENERAL RESULTS OF THE WAR 31 

who hold any definite political opinions. Com- 
mands may be issued; obedience cannot be 
permanently enforced. Despotism is always 
tempered by assassination; revolt is the final 
weapon in the hands of a disaffected people. But 
the support given to a government may be of 
two kinds. It may be merely the result of lack 
of initiative, of absence of debate; it may be 
merely the result of ingrained habits of submis- 
sion. Such obedience was rendered to the 
oriental despotisms of the past; such obedience 
has been rendered in more recent times to many 
absolute monarchies. 

But there is also a different type of obedience, 
that which is voluntarily rendered by a free 
people. This is the type of obedience which is 
given to rulers who are really selected by the 
subjects, the support accorded to chosen repre- 
sentatives. Those who obey are consciously the 
equals of those who rule; they are, in fact, 
themselves the ultimate rulers. Their obedience 
is reasoned, not servile; it is the result not of 
ignorance or of fear, not of superstition or of 
mental pauperism, but of a developed political 
sense, of a conviction that liberty is not licence, 
that freedom is not anarchy. 

Such obedience to authority is rendered in 



32 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

England and in France. In each country govern- 
ment rests upon the reasoned assent of the 
governed. Popular approval of policy is ensured 
by the fact that it is the people who really deter- 
mine the policy which shall be pursued; their 
preliminary approval is indeed essential. Co- 
operation between rulers and subjects is not 
merely possible but inevitable; in the present 
struggle, the people both can and must be granted 
the fullest possible share. In such circumstances 
a government can have no fear of the political 
consequences which may result from a victory 
gained by an alliance between ruler and ruled. 
No revolution will result ; there is no debt which 
the governments of France and England can 
contract towards their subjects which they would 
be unwilling or unable to discharge. Neither 
power need hesitate to preach the gospel of liberty 
and of justice for the weak. And thus they are 
well qualified to champion the principle of inter- 
national equality. Upon that very principle then- 
own existence rests; they aim at nothing more 
than the extension to the relations of state with 
state of that very system which at home they 
have already adopted. Nor does such champion- 
ship of the weak constitute any great innovation 
in their foreign policy. France has ever been 






GENERAL RESULTS OF THE WAR 33 

sympathetic to the Poles, England has never been 
unmoved by the cries of the oppressed. Both 
nations have done service for the cause of liberty 
throughout the world. 

But there is a third member of the Triple 
Entente, whose institutions appear to be less in 
accord with the principles of the allies, whose 
sincerity in preaching liberty may seem to be 
more open to question. Russia has long been 
more autocratically governed than has any other 
state. Her rulers have repressed with vigour all 
liberal manifestations; the exponents of liberty 
have been condemned to death or to an exile 
worse than death. Her area is vast, her resources 
almost incalculable. Her civilisation has been 
disputed; her people have been very generally 
regarded as backward and almost barbarous. 
Flushed with victory and controlled by a mili- 
tarist caste, she might well expose the peace and 
liberty of Europe to dangers far greater than any 
which could result from Prussian ambition. Her 
power for good or for evil can hardly be measured, 
and it is little wonder that many who would 
otherwise welcome the victory of France and 
England dread the consequences of a victory 
gained by the aid of Russia. 

Yet there is reason to believe that such dread 

c 



34 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

is needless, that the undoubted power of Russia 
will be used for good, that in that empire a new 
and brighter era is dawning. For centuries 
Russia has been controlled by an alien ruling 
class; Germans and Swedes have commanded, 
Slavs have obeyed. The Romanovs themselves 
are only a degree less German than the Guelphs. 
Rurik himself was a Scandinavian; the greatest 
perhaps of his successors, Catherine II., was a 
German. Of the favoured ministers of the Tsar, 
few indeed have been Slavs, and the contempt of 
the Russian aristocracy for the peasantry is the 
measure of that aristocracy's alien character. It 
is little wonder that a despotic spirit should have : 
pervaded the administration, that repression 
should have been general, that nameless atrocities , 
should have been committed. All was needed to 
bolster up a non-national regime, to secure the 
continued submission of the Slavs. 

For those atrocities the Slav race cannot with 
justice be held responsible. Some have indeed 
served and defended the despotic system, some 
have committed deadly crimes against their nation'* 
and against mankind, but it is not in such that = 
the true spirit of the race finds expression. That 
spirit is to be found in the attitude of the Russian 
masses towards the policy of their rulers. The 



GENERAL RESULTS OF THE WAR 35 

Japanees War left those masses unmoved; to 
them, it seemed to be some mere sordid quarrel 
for distant ports, a quarrel which involved no 
principle and which was not sanctified by any 
high ideal. But the same masses had been stirred 
to their very depths by the struggle of the Greeks 
for independence, by the miseries of Bulgaria; 
they have been stirred to-day by the peril of their 
brothers in Serbia. The race has risen to defend 
that which it holds to be right and just; it is fired 
with a generous enthusiasm, all-believing and 
unconquerable. 

In the past, the Slavs have been similarly 
moved. They have answered gladly to the 
summons of their Tsar; they have laid down their 
lives freely, have died that others might live. No 
sacrifice has seemed too great to be made for the 
cause of liberty; all the faults of their rulers have 
been forgiven, all the misery of the past forgotten, 
in an outburst of passionate devotion. But when 
by such devotion victory has been gained, the 
Tsars have failed to display gratitude to their 
people. The former system has been maintained ; 
heavy punishment has once more awaited those 
who have dared to speak of freedom. A Germano- 
Swedish aristocracy has continued to oppress the 
Slavs, whom they have for a time exploited. 



36 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

Once more a Tsar has called upon his people; \ 
once more his people has responded to that call, s 
It may be that once more also they will be be- 
trayed, that once more the devotion of the Slavs 
will pass unrewarded. But the Russia of to-day ; 
is not the Russia of a past generation. Into the 
nation there has entered a new and more vigorous - 
spirit, a spirit which has found expression in an • 
outburst of literary activity. The Slavs have k 
learned to realise their national identity and their \ 
power. Some advance has been made towards 
the establishment of representative government; 
slowly but surely a more liberal spirit has begun 
to pervade the administration. Already the . 
dominion of the alien is undermined. Russia, 
indeed, is on the eve of revolution, not of a 
revolution of bombs and daggers, but a revolution 
of peace, by which political power will at last be 
given to the true Russian people. And since that 
people has in the past both suffered from tyranny 
and struggled to save others from oppression, it is 
reasonable enough to believe that it will not now 
betray the cause which it will aid to victory. 
Rather, Russia, no less than England and France, 
will be true to the cause of equality among nations, 
true to the cause of the weak. The defeat of 
Germany will not mean the substitution of one 



GENERAL RESULTS OF THE WAR 37 

; tyranny for another, of one domination for 
1 another, but the end of domination, the dawn of 
I a new era of liberty. 

One factor, and one factor alone, may seem 

, destined to falsify this hope, the imperfection of 

1 human nature. In the past, nations have proved 

; reluctant to sacrifice private advantage to the 

common good; the difficulty of those problems 

which have appeared to be insoluble save by war 

I has been due to the selfishness and intolerance of 

states. That selfishness can be removed only by 

a change in human nature. Until men are 

actuated by a fuller sympathy with their fellows, 

until they are inspired by the spirit of toleration, 

it is idle to expect that the world will be freed 

from conflict. For intolerance of others, refusal 

to see their point of view, lies at the root of all 

strife, of all hatred and enmity, whether between 

individuals or between nations. And war is no 

more than the most vigorous expression of 

intolerance, of an intolerance so intense that it 

impels to murder. 

It may seem idle to expect that this intolerance 
will be removed. No previous war has served 
to accomplish this result; the hopes which have 
been formed of a dawn of universal peace have 
been again and again falsified, until those who 



38 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

have continued to hope have been regarded as 
incurable optimists, amiable perhaps, but foolish 
to a degree. And already those who have sug- 
gested that the present war will end war have 
been warned that they are hoping for the im- 
possible. They are reminded that when Napoleon 
had been overthrown an exactly similar hope 
for a while prevailed, that on the very eve of the 
outbreak of the Crimean War many were assert- 
ing that the peace of Europe could never more be 
disturbed. They are reminded also that on the 
eve of the outbreak of the present conflict similar 
assertions were made, and they are warned that 
it is blind folly to expect that the history of the 
future will differ materially from the history of 
the past. They are informed, in effect, that the 
present war is but one more of those periodic 
catastrophes to which the world is liable, that 
human nature is immutable, that so long as the 
human race endures wars will endure also. 

For all these contentions there is a superficial 
justification. The present war does resemble 
previous wars in many respects; its ultimate 
cause, divergence of opinion as to the true path 
of happiness, has been the cause also of all other 
conflicts. Yet a great and vital difference also 
exists. It is not merely that the alhes have 



GENERAL RESULTS OF THE WAR 39 

entered upon the conflict with purer motives and 
with greater justice than nations have ever 
entered upon war in the past. It is not merely 
that the division between the two parties is 
clearer and more complete, extending to their 
internal organisation no less than to their external 
policy. The difference is even greater. Whether 
the area affected be considered, or the economic 
interests involved, or the numbers of the armies 
engaged, the present struggle assuredly deserves 
the epithet " titanic " ; it is in very truth a world 
war; it is the most tremendous conflict that 
mankind has ever seen. And in this fact lies 
hope, sure and certain, that its results will be 
greater and more beneficial than have been the 
results of any previous conflict. 

Men are moved by nothing more readily than 
by the immense, by that which is so vast as to 
pass the comprehension of finite minds. And by 
its very immensity the present war will do far 
more than redraw the political map of the world, 
far more than shift the balance of power from this 
state or group of states to that, divert trade from 
one channel to another. All these things will be 
accomplished, all these and more. That will be 
effected which has not been effected by any 
previous upheaval, which Christianity itself has 



40 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

failed to achieve. Since the dawn of Greek 
civilisation human nature in its essentials has 
appeared to be immutable. Those hopes, fears 
and passions which moved men in the days of 
Homer move men still to-day. They love and 
hate with the same ardour and with as little 
reason; they commit the same crimes and per- 
form no less heroic deeds. Their extravagance 
and folly seem hardly to have diminished; the 
men of to-day seem to be no more rational than 
were the warriors of the siege of Troy. 

But though at first sight human nature has not 
appeared to change, there is no reason for suppos- 
ing that it is therefore unchangeable, that the 
race has lived the last four thousand years in 
vain, that History must for ever be " the register 
of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind." 
Rather, there is reason to believe that human 
nature has changed and that it will change still 
further. Even if the old passions still burn, even 
if the former imperfections can still be found, 
yet knowledge has increased, the area of civilisa- 
tion has been widened. The intervals of peace 
between nations have grown longer; though 
wars have not ceased, they have become less 
frequent. Human sympathy has deepened, 
human cruelty has diminished. National crimes 



GENERAL RESULTS OF THE WAR 41 

are rarer, the atrocities of an infuriated army 
arouse more resentment, the very criminals seek 
to palliate their criminality. Attila produced 
no apologies for his barbarities; his modern 
imitators deny that they have been barbaric. A 
great and far-reaching change has been coming 
over human nature. 

That change can only be accelerated by the 
present crisis in the history of the world. Men 
are ever sobered, rendered more thoughtful, by 
adversity; nations are brought to a deeper 
consciousness of duty. Of the adversity which 
the present conflict will produce there can be no 
doubt; the misery will be greater, the sorrow 
more intense, than the race has ever known. 
But out of adversity good will come. Men will 
learn a higher and a truer wisdom ; experiencing 
to the full the evil of violence, they will learn to 
appreciate its folly. Having been brought to 
sorrow by intolerance, they will learn the merit 
of toleration. Human nature will be changed, 
and so changed as to render enduring peace 
possible and certain. 

For the prevalence of a new spirit will serve to 
end war. It is in the sentiment of intolerance 
alone that the cause of war is to be found. Lack 
of sympathy between races, mutual distrust, has 



42 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

made the growth of armaments a possibility; 
the masses have permitted the establishment of 
a militarist regime, which they have hated, 
because they have also learned to believe that 
all men must for all time pursue their own selfish 
interest, that they must ever make their choice 
between slaying and being slain. But the 
calamities which the world now endures will 
destroy this intolerance ; in its place a new spirit 
of toleration will prevail, a toleration based not 
upon contempt but upon respect, not upon 
necessity or fear but upon love, a toleration which 
is divine. Inspired by that spirit, nations will 
learn that they have believed a he, that there is 
no necessary and permanent conflict between one 
people and another, that all may labour together 
to promote the welfare of the race. 

And so this war, which the allies have under- 
taken for the defence of the weak and for the 
establishment of the principle of equality among 
nations, will not end in a return to the old order 
but in the evolution of a new world. International 
relations will be inspired by that spirit which 
produced the alliance. In place of the dominion 
of the mighty there will appear a new harmony, 
a sincere desire to do justice to the weak. Equality 
of right will be regarded in place of inequality 



GENERAL RESULTS OF THE WAR 43 

of might; to the smaller states will be accorded 
that consideration to which they are entitled. 
In any civilised state, it is already recognised 
that the poverty or physical weakness of an 
individual do not excuse his persecution or 
oppression; rather, they are held to justify the 
granting of a special measure of protection. 
Henceforth, the same conviction will prevail 
among nations; the material weakness of a 
state will no longer be regarded as ground for 
its coercion by greater powers. Nations will no 
longer pursue their own interest without regard 
for others; they will realise that their own true 
interest lies in due consideration for the interest 
of all. 

Nor is it in international relations alone that 
this new spirit of toleration and sympathy will 
appear. Resulting from a change in the very 
nature of man, from the completion of a revolu- 
tion which has been slowly developing through 
the ages, it will affect every form of human 
activity. Political parties will learn to respect 
one another; those who hold different religious 
creeds will recognise that with all their divergence 
of belief they may still work together for the 
attainment of a good which is above and beyond 
all mere dogma, which is eternal and divine. 



44 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

Class prejudice and social prejudice will be 
softened and obliterated ; even the conflict of sex, 
the most enduring of all forms of conflict, will 
experience the same influence. All will realise 
their mutual dependence; all will realise that 
there is a work to be done for humanity to which 
all can contribute, to perform which is the whole 
duty of man. 

Such changes, indeed, may not and indeed 
cannot be instantaneous ; there is no lesson which 
does not require time in the learning, and the 
lesson which is now to be learned is not easy. 
It is far simpler to prevent the great crimes of 
violence than to prevent the deadlier crimes 
which kill or maim not the body but the soul. 
It is far easier to end strife between nations than 
to end the more insidious strife of individuals. 
Yet adversity is a skilled teacher; the lesson of 
the present evil time will assuredly be learned, 
and, that task accomplished, the nations of the 
world will enter upon an age of peace, which will 
endure for all time. Armageddon will have been 
fought; the powers of good will have triumphed. 
In a new and a better world, the teaching of the 
Sermon on the Mount will no longer be regarded 
as so ideal as to border upon folly; those who 
would strive to obey it will no longer be greeted 



GENERAL RESULTS OF THE WAR 45 

with a smile of almost pitying contempt. And 
those who in the cause of liberty and toleration 
have laid down their lives on the battlefields of 
Europe will win the blessings of generations that 
are yet unborn, of millions upon millions who will 
cherish and reverence the memory of those who 
died that by their death sunshine might enter 
into the lives of the weakest and the lowliest. 



Ill 

THE WAR AND INTERNATIONAL POLITICS 

Though the present war will effect a revolution 
in the nature of man, it cannot be supposed that 
it will also destroy that desire for happiness which 
has ever been the mainspring of all human action. 
The desire will remain; the means by which it 
may be gratified will be more fully understood; 
the errors of the past will be avoided, and the 
quest will be at last successful. Hitherto the 
attainment of happiness, whether by nations or 
by individuals, has been prevented by lack of 
tolerance. Men, convinced of the rectitude of 
their own opinions, have regarded the contrary 
ideas of others as being almost deliberately 
mistaken; they have insisted with vigour upon 
their own point of view, and by this insistence 
they have caused disputes and have destroyed 
alike peace and contentment. Lack of tolerance 
has led to the adoption of extreme courses and 
of extreme views. Men have demanded power 
to impose their own opinions upon their mis- 
guided fellows, or they have sought liberty 
46 



WAR AND POLITICS 47 

to pursue their own course without regard to 
the welfare of others. The human race has 
oscillated between despotism and anarchy; it 
has found happiness in neither, and yet the 
wavering between the two extremes has con- 
tinued, mainly because the imperfect nature of 
man both makes some measure of control neces- 
sary and renders that control to some extent 
pernicious. 

And nations have displayed no greater wisdom 
than have individuals. They have sought salva- 
tion in the same extremes, have sought and 
found not. International politics have been 
marked by the same ill-advised search for happi- 
ness as has marked the political life of each state 
and of every individual. Viewing life soberly, 
men realise the folly of violent reactions and 
appreciate the unwisdom of their ancestors. 
Yet unconsciously they imitate those ancestors, 
nor are there any lessons which have been better 
known or worse learned than the lessons which are 
writ large on the pages of history. The veriest 
child in politics understands that the ideal of the 
Holy Roman Empire was impracticable and false; 
experienced statesmen have failed to understand 
that the identical idea was the inspiration of 
the recent concert of Europe. Men despise the 



48 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

irrational conduct of others; their own conduct 
is not a whit less irrational. We smile at the 
insane idealism of lovers; falling in love, we find : 
that idealism in ourselves reasonable and sane. 
It has ever been the fate of man to perceive the i 
mote in his friend's eye, while ignoring the beam ' 
in his own eye. And the same fatality has 
pursued nations. ] 

But all the errors which have been committed j 
alike by individuals and by nations have in 
reality arisen from an inability to appreciate the 
standpoint of others, from a lack of toleration. - 
This lack has prevented appreciation of the in- 
trinsic imperfection of any given course, and 
hence has led to the adoption of that course in a 
most extreme form. The most ardent advocates 
of broadmindedness have yet believed that their 
own opinion is intrinsically right, that they may 
justifiably impose that opinion upon others. De- 
siring to be tolerant, they have been as dogmatic 
as those whom they have attacked on the very : 
ground of dogmatism. They have denied the 
equal rights of their fellows by their actions : 
while proclaiming them with their lips. In- 
ability to take wide views has been, indeed, the 
greatest curse of the human race. To it must : 
be traced all political, religious, social persecu- 



WAR AND POLITICS 49 

tion; it has led to the propagation of dogmas in 
religion and in social relations, in politics, litera- 
ture, music and art. It has led to dogmatism in 
international politics, a dogmatism which has 
found expression in attempts to order the world 
in the interests of a few states. 

Those few states have been the so-called great 
powers. It has become an axiom of international 
politics that certain states, possessed of greater 
territorial strength, greater material and military 
resources, are thereby entitled to dogmatise to 
the world, entitled to order international politics 
according to their own conception of the advis- 
able and just. More especially has this been the 
case since the close of the Napoleonic wars. At 
the Congress of Vienna, the four allies openly de- 
clared their intention of dividing the spoils of the 
vanquished. At the Congress of Berlin, the map 
of the Balkans was redrawn in the real or sup- 
posed interests of the great powers. More re- 
cently, the ambassadorial conference in London 
was concerned less to secure a lasting peace than 
to give satisfaction to Italy and Austria. 

But the result of this domination by the greater 
states has, of necessity, been the suppression of 
nationalism, the tyrannical coercion of the weaker 
states. In place of the view that the weak are 



50 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

entitled to the fullest consideration, the view has 
prevailed that the desires of the strong need 
alone receive attention. And since the dominions 
of the great powers in the majority of cases con- 
tain districts not attached to them by any bond 
other than an artificial political link, it followed 
as a matter of course that nationalism should be 
repressed. For nationalism is the creed of the 
weak, the justification of the existence of small 
states. It is almost necessarily antipathetic to 
the conception of a wide empire, for any such 
empire must entail the dominion of one race 
over others. England and France are the most 
homogeneous of the great powers ; yet even they 
hold in subjection millions of subjects whose 
claims to national existence they entirely deny. 

This suppression of nationalism has been 
plausibly justified. It has been argued that it 
is demanded in the interest of peace, that the 
nationalist principle is essentially productive of 
strife. Up to a certain point this contention is 
just enough. All wars since Waterloo, and in- 
deed earlier wars also, have been produced by the 
existence of national sentiment. Nothing else 
impelled the Italian cities to resist Frederic 
Barbarossa, the Swiss and the Dutch to assert 
their independence, Europe to resist the domina- 



WAR AND POLITICS 51 

tion of France. To the national spirit must be 
traced all revolts, all refusal of a people to submit 
to alien domination. 

But refusal to recognise national rights is 
merely intolerance, the same intolerance which 
leads a government to refuse equal rights, 
political or religious, economic or social, to its 
subjects. Intolerance of mind in a state pro- 
duces aggression; that aggression provokes 
hostility, and the hostility culminates in war. 
The present conflict is no exception to this rule. 
Germany aspired to guide and hence to dominate 
Europe. But her policy threatened the exist- 
ence of some states directly, of all indirectly, and 
the more so as both she and her ally, Austria, 
have been the determined enemies of all national 
life, the apostles of the creed of the survival of 
the fittest. The war is in essence a struggle be- 
tween heterogeneous and homogeneous states, 
between dominion based upon force and dominion 
based upon goodwill. The allies have insisted 
upon this fact; France has called the Turcos to 
her aid, England the Indians, Russia the Poles. 

The mere occurrence of the present war is 
evidence of the failure of the policy of repression. 
If the principle of nationality had been admitted, 
there would have been no Serbian question; if 



52 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

the equal rights of smaller nations had been 
sincerely recognised, Belgium would have been 
secure. In other words, if toleration had been 
established in Europe, if the principle of tolera- 
tion had been accepted loyally and sincerely, 
there would have been no war. But as it was not 
so accepted, the inevitable aggression occurred, 
and the inevitable resistance to aggression. This 
war is one last proof of the error of repression, of 
the invalidity of the doctrine which has prevailed 
since the Congress of Vienna, that all international 
questions should be determined by the wishes or 
necessities of the great powers. 

And by reason of its very magnitude, this war 
also supplies the most convincing proof that has 
ever been produced. Of necessity it must cause 
nations to consider whether those means which 
they have hitherto adopted to secure happiness 
are indeed calculated to attain that end. Not 
less must it serve to convince men of the need 
that some means for avoiding the calamities of 
war should be discovered. For the present con- 
flict will bear in its train calamities far greater 
than have ensued from any previous war, greater 
because the area affected is also greater, because 
the engines of destruction have been brought to 
a higher pitch of perfection, because years of 



WAR AND POLITICS 53 

peace have given the nations concerned time to 
accumulate vaster stores of wealth, because a 
higher standard of comfort causes privation to 
be more acutely felt. And since experience of 
evil always causes men to ponder, nations to 
become more reflective, the mind of the world 
will be moved at last to consider whether it is 
indeed inevitable that international relations 
should be based upon mutual distrust, whether 
the world must of necessity be an aggregation of 
states each jealously watching its fellows. For 
so long as military strength is the necessary 
foundation for national liberty, so long every 
nation must strive to increase its power unless it 
is prepared to submit to the dictation of others; 
each is bound to watch jealously any advance 
made by others, since that advance contains a 
veiled threat. Europe must be an armed camp 
so long as it is controlled by the great powers; 
every state desires some share of that control and 
can gain it only by arming and preparing for war. 
Even, however, if the calamities of the present 
war did not serve to cause reflection, mere neces- 
sity would suggest the pursuit of a different path 
to happiness. After the Napoleonic wars, Europe 
sighed for peace; fear of war and revolution 
became for a time the dominating factor in 



54 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

politics. Upon that fear rested the ascendancy 
of the Quadruple Alliance ; in that fear was found 
the justification for the general repression of 
liberalism. The continent was to be led to 
happiness by means of an alliance of overwhelm- 
ing military strength; content was to be secured 
by the prevention of all free development. The 
attempt was unsuccessful. Though peace was 
maintained for a while, it ended in years of 
turmoil. Intolerance had been adopted as the 
fundamental principle of international relations; 
it had proved to be a wrong principle. The 
allies who defeated Napoleon provided a lesson 
for posterity, and slowly that lesson has been 
learned. Slowly, for the recent concert was no 
more than an attempt to reproduce the Quad- 
ruple Alliance; an attempt, the half-hearted 
character of which suggested that the great 
powers themselves were becoming convinced of 
the futility of the method of coercion. But since 
intolerance has been tried and found wanting, 
since its failure is palpably obvious, and yet the 
end which intolerance was directed to attain is 
still the end for which nations strive, the only 
alternative method must perforce be adopted. 
Tolerance must be tested; free assent must take 
the place of coercion. 



WAR AND POLITICS 55 

And unless the quest for happiness is doomed 
to be for ever vain, it is in the adoption of tolera- 
tion that the true path lies. Hitherto, it has 
never been adopted, since the nature of man 
drives him towards extremes. But the present 
war will increase the desire for peace, as the war 
against Napoleon increased that same desire. 
Past history will point the way to peace ; calamity 
will modify human nature, and that modification 
will enable men to pursue the right path. Con- 
flict will cease, not because it is temporarily pro- 
hibited by the great powers, but because it will 
have become hateful to the conscience of man- 
kind. It will be avoided, not by the method of 
compulsion, but by the removal of the ultimate 
cause. Taught of misfortune, moved to learn 
the lessons of the past, men will essay toleration, 
will avoid those extremes which have produced 
all past conflicts. The race will pursue a wiser 
path, and, pursuing it, will attain that goal for 
which mankind has striven since the dawn of 
civilisation. 

And no sooner has it been recognised that 
peace is not attainable by force, cannot really be 
based upon compulsion, than the doctrine of 
assent secures ascendancy. The principle of 
liberty, of toleration, becomes the guiding prin- 



56 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

ciple of international relations. Of this the first 
result must be the adoption of nationalism as the 
broad basis of the organisation of human society. 
Repression of national aspirations has been the 
general rule since the fall of Napoleon; it has 
been productive of war, and the cause of those 
wars has been misunderstood. Because some 
states would be subverted and others embarrassed 
by the application of the national principle to 
them, because the struggles of the last century 
have been nationalist in character, it has been 
rashly concluded that the principle is necessarily 
productive of conflict and that its adoption could 
only mean unending strife. But it has been less 
nationalism than the repression of nationalism 
which has caused conflict; wars have occurred, 
not because the national principle has been 
accepted, but because it has been rejected. This 
truth has now secured recognition; even while 
the concert still subsisted, the powers abandoned 
the attempt to maintain the status quo in the 
Balkans, its maintenance being impossible for no 
other reason than the fact that it conflicted with 
nationalism. In other words, the powers re- 
cognised that in one instance at least recognition 
of nationality afforded the greatest hope of peace 
A fuller recognition of this truth will be the 



WAR AND POLITICS 57 

first result of the present war; it will lead to the 
adoption of nationality as the broad basis of 
settlement. Already this has been suggested by 
the conduct of the allies. Refusal any longer to 
permit the repression of peoples is seen in the 
defence of Serbia by Russia, of Belgium by Eng- 
land; it is seen also in the proclamation to the 
Poles. Yet it is also clear that nationality can- 
not be the complete basis, that it cannot be every- 
where applied. There are districts in which two 
or more races are inextricably mingled ; no human 
ingenuity could devise a means by which the 
national principle could be there applied. It 
would lead to a strange conglomeration of 
enclaves, which would afford food for endless 
disputes. This difficulty has been fully realised 
in the past; its realisation has done much to 
hinder the adoption of the broad principle. The 
problems presented by such a district as Mace- 
donia have appeared so insuperable that the 
task of solution has not really been attempted. 

But though a complete adoption of nationalism 
is clearly impossible, its broad application is not 
the less certain. Mankind, resolved to avoid 
further war, convinced that the former methods 
are unsatisfactory, will be convinced also that 
nationality must be recognised, that such re- 



58 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

cognition affords the only hope of success in the 
quest for happiness. The principle of toleration 
will gain ground, and it has only been the absence 
of that principle which has made the acceptance 
of nationality so difficult in the past. Inter- 
national jealousies have complicated the question; 
those jealousies are themselves expressions of 
intolerance, and with the decline of intolerance 
jealousy will pass away also. Nationality will 
become the general principle; the thorny ques- 
tions of mixed races will be solved by the mere 
existence of a resolve to allow for the point of 
view of others. 

And the map of Europe will therefore be 
redrawn. The details of that redrawing cannot 
be settled academically, but certain general 
results may be indicated with confidence. The 
system of dualism has gone for ever. Austria- 
Hungary may or may not continue to exist ; the 
domination of the German-Magyar alliance has 
passed away. Whether the solution of the 
Austrian problem is to be partition or trialism 
or federalism, at least the Slavs can no longer be 
denied equal rights. The emergence of that race 
is inevitable. Beyond such broad generalisations, 
however, it is impossible to proceed. It is idle 
to attempt to forecast what compensation will 



WAR AND POLITICS 59 

eventually be accorded to Belgium, what frontier 
will be acquired by France, what will be the exact 
fate of Schleswig-Holstein, of the Czechs and of 
the Roumans. That the aggressions of great 
powers will be checked is certain; it is certain 
that when the map is redrawn the smaller states 
will greatly benefit. 

For the very adoption of nationality is the 
recognition of the smaller states. It involves 
their creation and their maintenance. In the 
past, the weak have been sacrificed; intolerance 
in international politics, as in all other relations 
of life, has involved the persecution of minorities. 
That persecution, when directed against small 
states, has been justified on the very grounds 
upon which governments have justified political 
and religious persecution of their subjects. Denial 
of liberty has been defended on the assumption 
that liberty must degenerate into licence ; in order 
to avoid the evils of anarchy, violence has often 
become the real rule of human society. But a 
regime of violence must necessarily penalise the 
weaker; in the relations of state with state, it 
has involved the sacrifice of nationality. When, 
therefore, nationality becomes the basis of inter- 
national politics, liberty must replace violence. 
The measure of right must cease to be might; 



60 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

the claim of a nation to be free must be based not 
on the ability of that nation to resist aggression, 
but upon its inalienable right to liberty. 

Yet even when human nature is modified, and 
when toleration has become the rule of life, dis- 
putes will still arise. In the most civilised and 
ordered state, quarrels between individuals con- 
stantly occur, quarrels in which each party is 
sincerely convinced of the justice of his cause. 
And however civilised the relations of states may 
become, they will yet inevitably quarrel; questions 
will arise for decision between them. Hitherto 
such questions have been ultimately settled by 
war, with the result that they have been decided 
also not necessarily in accordance with equity 
but by superior military strength. If the weaker 
have sometimes been safeguarded, it has only 
been at the cost of some loss of independence and 
because such protection of the weak seemed to 
accord with the interests of the strong. There 
has been no clear conviction of the rights of the 
smaller states; there has been no willingness on 
the part of the larger to sacrifice one iota of the 
advantages conferred upon them by reason of 
their very magnitude. 

But it is impossible that war should continue to 
be the ultimate deciding factor, if the rights of the 



WAR AND POLITICS 61 

weak are to be genuinely regarded. Those rights 
would rest upon no sure foundation; they would 
depend on the dubious goodwill of the great 
powers. Another method of deciding disputes 
must be found, and it can be found only in a 
system of arbitration. Arbitration, however, 
can only be enforced by means of some species of 
concert, and at first sight the restoration of the 
old alliance between the great powers would 
perhaps seem to be inevitable. But it may be 
suggested that between the concerts of the past 
and the new league there will be a great and funda- 
mental difference. Originally there was a more 
or less sincere resolve to maintain the status quo, 
that status quo being based upon the rejection of 
nationality and being by that very fact oppressive 
to the smaller states. The present war, from the 
point of view of the allies, has been undertaken 
for the defence of those smaller states ; nationality 
has been accepted and its acceptance involves the 
safeguarding of the interests of the weak. The 
new concert, therefore, can be no mere league 
of the great powers; it must be a wider union, 
inspired by a higher principle, involving not the 
repression of the weak but the recognition of their 
equality in rights. The methods of the old 
concert resembled the operation of lynch law in 



62 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

a half -civilised country; the new concert will 
inaugurate the reign of law as understood in a 
really civilised community. Nations will combine 
to maintain international good order and morality 
as citizens combine within a state; their guiding 
motive will be complete and equal justice for all. 

Yet as in all states, however civilised, there are 
some actual or potential law-breakers, so it may 
be anticipated that this dominion of international 
law will not be wholly unopposed. A lie ever 
dies with difficulty; the lie that nations are and 
must always be actuated only by selfish motives 
will die with difficulty. The masses for a while 
will still be deceived, still led to believe that they 
are threatened by their neighbours and that the 
danger can be repelled only by a counter-attack. 
A ruling, militarist caste will for a time be able 
to maintain its domination; it will certainly 
seek to perpetuate that domination by aggression. 
And it will be the task of the new concert to resist 
and to prevent that aggression, and by preventing 
it to complete the education of the world and to 
prevent war. 

The means are ready to hand. Nationalism 
supplies the principle which will guide the conduct 
of the concert ; all attempts to repress nationalism 
will be resisted, and the state which opposes the 



WAR AND POLITICS 63 

accepted principle will be treated as are would- 
be criminals within the state. Pressure will be 
brought to bear upon it, and its good conduct 
ensured. That pressure is of two kinds, senti- 
mental and economic. Public opinion, the world 
having experienced the evils of an aggressive 
policy, will be hostile to the aggressor, who will 
thereby be assured beforehand of an entire 
absence of sympathy with his projects. 

And backed by public opinion, the economic 
weapon becomes all-powerful. Hitherto, public 
opinion has been generally divided; the aggres- 
sor has been able to appeal successfully to 
the self-interest and jealousies of other states. 
But in the present war, and before all its evils 
have been experienced, it is noteworthy that not 
a voice has been raised in defence of German 
aggression. Not only are the peoples of the 
allied states unanimous in their support of the 
war, a phenomenon never before witnessed, but 
neutral states are equally convinced of the 
justice of the allied cause. Germany is fully 
aware that she can expect no support from the 
benevolence of neutrals. When the evils of 
this war have been fully experienced, public 
opinion, already strongly opposed to aggression, 
will be still more convinced, and by its conviction 



64 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

will make possible the full use of the economic 
weapon. Refusal of loans, stoppage of trade, 
will readily convince the would-be criminal 
that his crime cannot be committed; he will be 
driven to obey the law, whether he will or no. 
Without the moving of a single ship or regiment, 
war will be rendered impossible, and the reign of 
arbitration established. 

Everywhere society will be reorganised upon 
the broad principle of toleration, finding ex- 
pression in the recognition of nationality. As the 
war is universal, so also will be its results; not 
merely Europe, but the whole world, will be 
remodelled. The recognition of the equal rights 
of strong and weak will be general, and the 
human race, long distracted by its predilection 
for extreme courses, will at last secure that peace 
for which it has always striven. Nor will the 
peace be merely temporary. Appalled by present 
calamities, instructed by past errors, human 
nature will be modified, and, in the world which 
will be born from this conflict, nations will realise 
the blessing of moderation, their mutual tolerance 
will serve to solve all disputes. 



IV 

IMPERIAL POLITICS 

All empires which the world has hitherto seen 

have involved a certain measure of repression. 

Established in the majority of instances by means 

of aggressive wars, they have been maintained 

in existence by similar means; a ruling race has 

held sway over more numerous subject peoples. 

The very word " empire " connotes a degree 

of coercion; history most abundantly justifies 

this connotation. The Athenians imposed the 

payment of tribute upon the former members of 

the Delian Confederacy; Lacedaemon established 

her harmosts in the cities which accepted her 

hegemony. Civilised Greeks and barbarous Gauls 

alike were compelled to accept the laws and 

institutions of Rome, and even when citizenship 

had been extended to the whole empire, some 

tribes, such as the Isaurians of Asia Minor, were 

still kept in obedience by the military power of 

the conquerors of the world. Coercion was not 

less a characteristic of the Habsburg Empire; 

the natives of America, and in some sense the 

65 e 



66 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

Dutch also, were regarded as unequal in rights to 
their Spanish rulers. Repression was not less 
apparent in France. In Canada and in Louisiana 
the French ruled, the American Indians obeyed. 
During the heyday of the Bourbon monarchy, 
the Huguenots were hardly better treated than 
were the peoples of the New World. 

Nor does the British Empire afford an exception. 
Boasting of their free institutions, and boasting 
with no little justification, the English still 
refrain from according equal rights to all subjects 
of the crown. Millions of Indians, millions of 
negroes, are denied self-government. Immature 
graduates of Oxford University are held to be 
more capable of administration than men of the 
subject races, however wise and cultured. At 
least to a certain extent Aristotle's doctrine of 
the natural slave has been unconsciously adopted 
as the basic principle of the British Empire; 
imperialism, as ever, has implied coercion. 

Even the white races have not been entirely 
freed from control. The crown colonies are 
governed more or less despotically; the vague 
shadow of representative government has not 
materialised. The Dominions themselves, practi- 
cally independent as they are, possess no direct 
nifluence upon foreign relations, and the reten- 



IMPERIAL POLITICS 67 

tion and exercise of an imperial veto serve to 
emphasise the conviction that the inhabitants 
of the British Isles are peculiarly fitted to deter- 
mine the fate of peoples with whose circumstances 
and character they are at best only imperfectly 
acquainted. The English claim to be a race of 
rulers, and it is a strange anomaly that they seem, 
in the eyes of their compatriots, to lose their 
capacity for rule by residence beyond the sea, 
unless indeed it is their firm resolve to return 
home in due course. 

Hostility to the principle of racial equality, 
indeed, has characterised every empire, every 
imperial people. If the degree of repression has 
varied greatly, repression has yet been always 
found. The very conception of imperialism seems 
to run counter to that of nationality; between 
the two ideas there appears to be a natural and 
inevitable conflict. Imperialism represents man's 
desire to dominate his fellows and to impose 
his will upon them ; nationalism represents man's 
longing for independence and his willingness to 
concede to others the liberty which he himself 
enjoys. Wherever the nationalist principle has 
prevailed, an empire has been disrupted or at 
least embarrassed. Spanish world power was 
first impaired by the revolt of the Dutch; the 



68 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

assertion of Magyar rights weakened the Austrian 
Habsburgs; the resolve of the Balkan peoples 
to be free overthrew Ottoman power in Europe. 
On almost every occasion when national claims 
have been vindicated, the result has been the 
erection of several small states in the place of one 
great power, and the exceptions presented by 
Germany and Italy are more apparent than real, 
since in each case heavy blows were struck at 
Austrian imperialism and since the new-formed 
monarchies have only been imperial in so far as 
they have denied the principle upon which they 
based their original claim to independent existence. 
But since nationalism has been consistently 
hostile to imperialism, and since the present 
war involves the championship of nationalism, it 
would seem to follow as an inevitable consequence 
that the present war should lead to the disruption 
of empires. The allies are righting for the liberty 
of the weak and oppressed, fighting the battle 
of the smaller nationalities. Their victory will 
necessarily be to some extent a defeat of the 
imperial idea, for in so far as imperialism implies 
coercion, the allies are anti-imperialist. And in 
so far as they are themselves guilty of coercion, 
they are guilty of that very fault which they 
propose to punish in the case of Germany and 






IMPERIAL POLITICS 69 

Austria. Consistency demands that they should 
themselves abandon the policy of coercion, even 
if that abandonment involves loss to themselves. 
And at first sight, if England remains true to 
the cause for which she has taken up arms, if 
her conduct be sincere, then the war will lead to 
the disruption of the British Empire, no less than 
to the disruption of the empires of the Habsburgs 
and Hohenzollerns. 

There is, however, a noteworthy difference 
between the British Empire and the empires of 
the past. Englishmen have always prided them- 
selves upon their liberty; autocracy has always 
been alien to their spirit; they have never been 
markedly unwilling to concede a large measure 
of local freedom to their oversea possessions. 
The self-governing colonies are to all intents and 
purposes independent states. It is unthinkable 
that the error committed in the case of the 
American colonies should be repeated; it is 
unthinkable that any. coercion of Australia or 
Canada should be attempted. The veto of the 
king in council is certainly maintained and 
exercised, but its exercise is in practice limited 
by considerations of prudence, nor would the 
veto be imposed in the case of any measure of 
which the passage was ardently desired by the 



70 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

colonials. In the crown colonies, the permanent 
inhabitants have some share in the work of 
administration. Only in those districts where 
the natives are, or are supposed to be, incapable 
of self-government, is the British rule despotic. 
Even in these cases the despotism is tempered 
by publicity, by the fact that all acts of the 
executive may be called in question in the House 
of Commons, a body which never fails to contain 
some members resolved to check and to punish 
anything in the nature of oppression. 

To a great extent, indeed, the British Empire, 
since the War of American Independence, has 
been explicitly based upon anti-imperial ideas. 
Imperialism implies the rule of a dominant race; 
that rule has been constantly limited. In Canada, 
the colonists of French blood have been admitted 
to an equality with those of English blood; 
loyalty has been secured by toleration and by the 
growth of mutual confidence ; the path of coercion 
has been abandoned. In South Africa, the Boers 
were defeated, and their quasi-independent re- 
publics were destroyed. So far, the action of 
England was thoroughly imperialist. But when 
peace had been established, the principle of equal 
rights was once more asserted. Full self-govern- 
ment was accorded to the Dutch; in effect, the 



IMPERIAL POLITICS 71 

conquering race submitted to be ruled by the 
conquered. Though there are subject races, 
Indians, negro tribes, American and Australasian 
aborigines, throughout the empire, these races 
are treated with far more consideration than are 
those peoples whose lot it is to be ruled by French 
or Germans, Spaniards, Dutch or Portuguese. 

And this idea of assent, the conviction that 
government should be not only for the people, 
but also by the people, has gained ground in 
recent years. That pure imperialism which 
would create and maintain a regime of coercion 
has been more and more discredited. Protests 
against the grant of self-government to the Boers 
were numerous. They were disregarded, and 
their shortsightedness has been so generally 
recognised that those who protested would 
possibly be glad to unsay their words. In the 
case of India, there has been a growing tendency 
to admit a hitherto governed people to a greater 
share in political power. Fundamental differ- 
ences in national character, serious divergences 
resulting from religious distinctions, the operation 
of the caste system, may well seem to render any 
great or complete grant of self-government an 
impossibility. But the principle that the Indians 
should have a voice in the decision of their own 



72 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

fate has been explicitly accepted. The English 
claim no inherent right to rule India despotically; 
they profess to regard the element of despotism 
in their rule as a regrettable necessity. If to 
many the assertion that British rule has been 
established in India and elsewhere only from an 
altruistic desire to benefit the subject races seems 
both untrue and hypocritical, yet it has this 
practical effect, that it renders it impossible for 
England to establish or to maintain an arbitrary 
system of military government. There must be 
in all British possessions and dependencies at 
least a formal consideration for the well-being 
of the natives. Actions such as distinguished 
the rule of Leopold II. in the Congo are impossible 
within the limits of the British Empire. 

There is, then, in the government of the British 
Empire a non-imperial element, non-imperial as 
imperialism is normally understood. And this 
fact has influenced and will influence still further 
the policy adopted during the present war. 
Undertaking a struggle for the deliverance of the 
oppressed, righting against a would-be lord of the 
world, England has shown herself true to her 
professed principles. She has accepted the help 
offered to her by the Dominions, not on the 
ground that this help has been rendered in dis- 



IMPERIAL POLITICS 73 

charge of an obligation, but as a favour received 
from a friend and equal. 

But she has done much more than this. She 
has called the native troops of India to her aid. 
Hindus and Mohammedans are to fight side by 
side with the regiments of the United Kingdom 
and the contingents supplied by Canada, New 
Zealand and Australia. The equality of the 
Indians is admitted in a most emphatic manner; 
they are placed explicitly on a level with English 
soldiers. In the past, ruling races have from 
time to time employed the military forces of 
subject peoples. Frankish and Gothic auxiliaries 
fought in the armies of the Roman Empire; the 
French emploj'ed the natives of North America 
and the armies of Hyder Ali in India; the 
Austrians armed the Ruthenians against the 
revolted Poles of Galicia. But in all these cases 
the inferiority of subject races was still asserted; 
they were mere mercenaries used to fight the 
battles of their masters. There was no admission 
of equality. 

But the present employment of Indian troops 
is on an entirely different footing; it cannot be 
paralleled in the past history of any empire. 
The Indians have come neither as mercenaries 
nor as slaves; they have come as the fellow- 



74 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

subjects of those who have in the past uled them. 
Their presence on European battlefields is in 
itself a dramatic recognition of racial equality; 
it is opposed to all the old theories of imperialism ; 
it is an innovation bound to produce vast results. 
By discharging willingly the duties, the Indians 
have established their claim to the rights of full 
citizenship. They thereby cease to be a subject 
race. 

This, however, is a blow, and perhaps a fatal 
blow, to imperialism, as imperialism has been 
hitherto understood. Just as in the wars which 
followed the Reformation the fiction of a Europe 
united under a spiritual head was exploded, and 
as in the wars following upon the French Revolu- 
tion the rule of the benevolent despot was dis- 
credited and for all practical purposes destroyed, 
so the present war will sweep into the limbo of 
the past the imperial ideas of the last century. 
The theory of the " white man's burden," in so 
far as that theory implies the exercise of despotic 
or paternal rule over non-white races, has been 
by implication rejected; it must soon be also 
rejected explicitly. Soldiers who can fight and 
die side by side cannot be widely differentiated 
from one another; a government which deliber- 
ately employs oriental troops in a European war 



IMPERIAL POLITICS 75 

cannot deny the ultimate equality of oriental 
races. At the close of this present war the 
British Empire in India will cease to exist in the 
sense in which it has existed since the days of 
Clive and Warren Hastings. 

Yet the very element of anti-imperialism which 
is present in the British Empire will preserve 
that empire from destruction. When all the 
vices of English rule have been admitted, it still 
remains an undeniable fact that this rule has 
devoted itself far less to the exploitation of subject 
races than has any other imperial government. 
It is no doubt true that the wealth of the United 
Kingdom has been largely increased as a result 
of the possession of oversea dominions; but this 
wealth has not been used with entire selfishness. 
In the old days of Spanish rule, the American 
colonies were regarded as valuable mainly as 
enabling impoverished Spanish grandees to re- 
construct their fortunes. The pious declaration 
that Spain's great care was for the conversion 
of the natives hardly deceived even those who 
uttered it. A not dissimilar exploitation of the 
natives was to be found in India in the days of 
the Company; even at the present time, many 
hold that Indian economic policy is determined 
by the needs of the Lancashire cotton mills. 



76 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

Nevertheless, it would be idle to deny that on the 
whole British rule in India has been directed to 
secure the greater welfare of the Indians. 

Elsewhere, if the original possessors of the soil 
have been evicted, their eviction has been for the 
general good of mankind. The most ardent 
champion of the non-white races could hardly 
contend that the dispossession of such peoples 
as the Australian aborigines has not been for the 
advantage of the world at large. Imperialism 
has been tinged by a consciousness of the duty 
to rule well. England has annexed wide terri- 
tories, and those territories have been adminis- 
tered by Englishmen. But British government 
has rarely, if ever, been openly defended on the 
plea that the English are natural rulers. 

That recognition of racial equality which is 
involved by the present war will, therefore, be 
far less detrimental to the British Empire than 
to an empire more definitely organised upon an 
imperialist basis; the modification of policy will 
not amount to a revolution. The last traces of 
the older imperialism will pass away, but that 
imperialism has long been declining. The War 
of American Independence proved that it was 
inapplicable to men of English blood; the 
Canadian revolt warned the imperial government 






IMPERIAL POLITICS 77 

to avoid the coercion of men of French extraction. 
In a certain sense, the Indian Mutiny taught the 
same lesson. Since that period, the tendency in 
India has been to give the former subject races 
an ever-increasing share in their own government. 
Racial equality, indeed, has not been fully 
admitted; the highest offices have hardly been 
opened to Indians. But there has been less 
insistence upon inequality; there has been an 
inclination to recognise and even to encourage 
the sentiment of nationality among the races of 
India. 

The process which has thus been begun will 
be accelerated by the present war. Equality 
of the two races will be admitted in India, as it 
is being admitted on the battlefields of Europe. 
Mere necessity would compel such recognition. 
The former system of government rested upon 
moral force, upon the conviction in the minds 
of the Indians that they were natural subjects. 
But the East has shared in the general progress 
of the human race. Willingness to obey has 
decreased, and the discovery of some new basis 
for government would in any circumstances be 
essential. And the simultaneous modification 
of the British attitude towards subject races will 
effectively supply the new basis. Tolerance has 



78 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

been learned; the rights of others have secured 
recognition. The alliance against Germany is 
based upon no other principle; and the same 
principle which inspired England to aid Belgium 
will determine the future government of the 
empire. The policy, already adopted with suc- 
cess in South Africa, will be applied to India also. 
It may be admitted that the recognition of 
nationality in India and the application of self- 
government must be at best only partial. India 
is not a land of one race but of many; the various 
peoples have little sympathy with one another, 
and the Mohammedan minority would be reluc- 
tant to accept the rule of the Hindu majority. 
The difficulty is obvious and great; its solution 
is, however, not impossible. The experience of 
joint service in the field will serve to bring the 
Indian races together, as joint service brought 
the German peoples together during the Napo- 
leonic wars. The growth of toleration will 
complete the work; harmony will be attained 
by realisation of the evils of strife. The process 
may be slow, but it will be effective. 

The Indians, however, are not the only subject 
peoples of the British Empire. In Africa and 
Polynesia there are millions of non-whites, whose 
nationality is real if unappreciated even by them- 



IMPERIAL POLITICS 79 

selves, whose rights are inalienable though 
generally ignored. It may appear, indeed, to 
be impossible to entrust negroes with powers of 
government ; all white races have hitherto agreed 
that the black races must be ruled. The Ameri- 
can constitution declares that no one shall be 
excluded from the exercise of the franchise by 
reason of colour; the negroes are none the less 
practically excluded from all political rights in 
those states in which they are numerically power- 
ful. Even some of the firmest champions of the 
negro cause have held that the black races are 
unfitted for the work of government. Many have 
pointed to the anarchic condition of the negro 
republics, and have argued that the true destiny 
of the African races is employment in subordinate 
though honourable positions. In face of so 
strong a conviction, it is clear that admission 
of equality in the black races is impossible for 
the moment. Yet the spirit of toleration here 
also will have its effect. Prejudice based upon 
difference of colour will decline; educational 
efforts will be directed to fit the negroes for the 
performance of the duties of citizens that they 
may also enjoy the rights. 

In short, free assent will become the basis of 
the British Empire. If, for the present, English- 



80 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

men will continue to hold the more responsible 
positions, that will be due to the fact that the 
other races, long habituated to subjection, and 
at present incapable of rule, accept direction with 
readiness. Such acceptance will not be perman- 
ent. As a man wearies of control and yearns in 
time to assert his liberty, so a race likewise wearies. 
National development produces unrest; gradu- 
ally free assent will no longer be given to the 
holding of all the greater positions by men of an 
alien race. As in Europe the present war will 
end German and Magyar rule over Slavs and 
Roumans, so it will lead ultimately to the end of 
British rule over Indians and negroes. 

The day is not now far distant when the self- 
governing colonies will cast away the few remain- 
ing traces of their subjection to the imperial 
parliament. They will demand an active share 
in the control of imperial policy ; they will refuse 
to risk being drawn into disputes by the adoption 
of a policy not previously approved by them- 
selves. Equality is already recognised; it will 
become still more real. That the war will pro- 
duce this result has been generally foreseen. It 
has perhaps been less generally recognised that 
the races of India will pursue the same course and 
that they also will demand a preponderating 



IMPERIAL POLITICS 81 

voice in their own government, a share in the 
direction of the British Empire. " India for the 
Indians " will cease to be merely the cry of a 
few disappointed politicians; it will become the 
recognised policy of England, and in place of rule 
by civilians from England there will be rule of 
India by her own people. 

Thus the British Empire, as at present consti- 
tuted, will cease to exist. Imperialism, implying 
coercion, will cease to be a living creed. In place 
of an empire ruled by an executive supplied by 
the British Isles, there will be created a federation 
of closely allied, but independent, states. A 
central parliament representative of the whole 
empire is an obvious impossibility. Considera- 
tions of distance alone would defeat this idea; 
numerical difficulties vitiate the entire proposal. 
But representatives of the Dominions and of 
India, resembling ambassadors of allied states, 
can and will assemble in London, sharing in the 
direction of foreign policy and deciding all matters 
which are not of merely local importance and 
interest. 

The war, indeed, while destroying the present 
character of the empire, will produce a new and 
more real unity. The rally of the colonies and of 
India to the aid of Great Britain is no triumph 



82 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

for that imperialism which would establish the 
English race as a dominant ruling people. On 
the contrary, to that imperialism it deals a 
staggering and fatal blow. Yet the empire will 
not be destroyed. It will be given a new and 
firmer basis, by the admission of racial equality, 
by the granting of equal rights to all the peoples 
of that empire. A predominant influence will 
doubtless long be exercised by the Anglo-Saxon 
race, since that race established the empire and 
since it is characterised by a political sense which 
has been developed through the centuries. But 
the influence will be that of guidance rather than 
of command. And affording a striking example 
of the possibility of dominion based upon assent, 
the British Empire will henceforward be, as it 
has been in the past, as it has been in the case of 
Belgium, the foe of oppression and the friend of 
liberty and justice. 



INTERNAL POLITICS IN ENGLAND 

Throughout history, in every state which 
has adopted representative institutions, political 
parties have also been formed. The legislative 
assembly has been the scene of more or less violent 
debates; unanimity of opinion has never been 
permanently secured, nor have the occasional 
suggestions for the elimination of party borne 
fruit. And this political phenomenon may be 
readily explained. Divisions of party are the 
direct product of human nature; they are the 
expression of that conflict which determines the 
conduct of each individual. Searching for happi- 
ness, men waver between the two alternative 
paths which may be pursued. The whole body of 
citizens equally so wavers, and the imperfection 
of human nature leads to the adoption of extreme 
views, to intolerance and to bitter conflict. 

But party divisions have in the past appeared 
to be necessary for the well-being of the state. 
Unhampered by the curb of opposition, govern- 

83 



84 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

ment would seem to tend towards tyranny; 
representative institutions would seem to be 
unreal if the executive were unchecked by the 
presence in the legislative body of a minority 
eager to overthrow the existing rulers. If the 
establishment of arbitrary power did not ensue, 
it would be only that the dominant party itself 
split into factions. No body of men, however 
sincerely they may be agreed upon broad prin- 
ciples, can be entirely agreed upon details, and a 
political party is preserved from vigorous disputes 
upon minor points only by the need of unity in 
face of a common enemy. In England, after the 
accession of George I., the Tory party for a while 
practically ceased to exist . Forthwith the victori- 
ous Whigs quarrelled among themselves ; ministers 
were opposed and defeated by the malcontents 
of their own party. In France, after the estab- 
lishment of the Third Republic, the Chamber 
was filled with members professedly agreed, 
devoted to the maintenance of the new regime. 
But harmony among them was short-lived; 
factions, violently hostile to one another, soon 
appeared, and unanimity gave place to division. 
The very completeness of a great political triumph 
seems in the past to have produced defeat; 
relieved from external danger, a party becomes 



INTERNAL POLITICS IN ENGLAND 85 

careless of its unity and forthwith splits up into 
groups antagonistic to one another. 

Such has been the history of parties in the 
past, and there may be little cause for supposing 
that their future history will be materially differ- 
ent. The calamities inseparable from the present 
war will effect a modification of human nature, 
but there is no ground for thinking that this 
modification will involve complete unanimity of 
opinion. The existence of such unanimity indeed 
would be a disaster. Man is distinguished from 
the brute creation by the possession of reason; 
debate, the exercise of the reasoning faculties, 
invigorates the mind, and it is from the vigorous 
mentality of the prophets and teachers of the 
past that all which is best in the world has 
been derived. If debate ceased, mentality would 
decline; men would become intellectually slug- 
gish and the race forthwith deteriorate. But 
identity of opinion would silence debate, which 
would clearly be rendered impossible, and the 
world, so far from profiting from the lessons of the 
present war, would suffer even greater evils from 
peace than it has endured through strife. 

There is, however, a wide difference between 
complete identity of opinion and violent conflict ; 
there is a mean between these two extremes in 



86 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

which the highest good may be found. And 
towards that mean the race will now be guided. 
War is the most extreme expression of difference 
of opinion ; its evils will be more fully appreciated 
as a result of present misery, and the appreciation 
of the demerits of one extreme will suggest the 
demerits of all extremes. Men will not learn to 
agree completely with their fellows; they will 
learn a far more valuable and beneficial lesson. 
They will learn to respect those from whom they 
differ; they will learn to tolerate. And just as 
the truest union between individuals is founded 
rather upon an appreciated diversity than upon 
unanimity, so the truest union in the state, the 
surest means for the avoidance of conflict and for 
the attainment of the highest happiness, will be 
found in mutual toleration, in mutual respect for 
divergence of opinion. Political parties will not 
cease to exist, but they will cease to differ with 
that violence and animosity which have charac- 
terised them in the past. 

For the growth of political violence has been 
one of the salient characteristics of English 
politics in recent years. There was a time, and 
that time not so far distant, when the contending 
parties in the state agreed in respecting each 
other, in crediting each other with sincerity and 



INTERNAL POLITICS IN ENGLAND 87 

honesty of purpose, even while they asserted that 
erroneous opinions were held by their opponents. 
This mutual respect has now largely disappeared. 
Each party has accused the other of political 
dishonesty, of pandering to the prejudices of the 
few or of the many, of being guided by no higher 
principle than self-interest. And the causes of 
this increased violence may be found in the growth 
of the professional politician, the development of 
the party machine, and the influence of the press. 
Originally it was a characteristic of English 
pohtics that the members of parliament were 
generally amateurs, men who entered the political 
arena as a pastime, who neither expected nor 
desired to profit materially from their public 
work. From the period when a wave of political 
purity extinguished first the direct system of 
bribery, and then the less direct corruption by 
means of sinecure offices, membership of the 
House of Commons was expensive and afforded 
little prospect of gain. The comparatively large 
salaries of cabinet ministers, even, rarely com- 
pensated office-holders for the loss of income 
involved in the adoption of a political career, 
and it was true that men possessing enough 
ability to attain to cabinet rank would have been 
capable of securing far more lucrative employ- 



88 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

ment in other fields of human activity. Member- 
ship of parliament was indeed valued, but valued 
for social and sentimental rather than for pecu- 
niary reasons. 

But gradually a change came over the House 
of Commons. The multiplication of officials 
seemed to promise material advantages to the 
supporters of the ministry for the time being; 
men began to enter into politics as a means of 
advancing themselves in some other form of 
employment; a class of professional politicians 
arose. These men, however, were generally 
neither willing nor able to wait long for the antici- 
pated reward; they viewed with anger, not 
unmingled with fear, the long continuance of 
an opposing party in office; they were almost 
feverishly anxious to render some signal service 
to their own party, and so to merit recognition. 
Disappointment produced bitterness; party 
methods became less scrupulous, and the attacks 
delivered upon ministers were marked by a venom 
unknown in the past. 

Nor was it the professional politicians alone 
who contributed to this result. The nineteenth 
century saw increasing specialisation in every 
direction, and consequently increased organisa- 
tion. Haphazard methods which had answered 



INTERNAL POLITICS IN ENGLAND 89 

well enough in an earlier period were now regarded 
as inadequate. The machinery of politics became 
more complete and efficient, until it has gradually 
become impossible for a man to secure election, 
or even re-election, without the assistance of 
party organisation. As a natural consequence, 
the independent member has tended to disappear; 
any indication of a readiness to follow the guid- 
ance of conviction rather than the directions of 
the party whips has been normally followed by 
the rejection of so self-willed a member in his 
constituency. Support from the party machine 
having become almost essential, members have 
tended to strive more and more to conciliate the 
organisers upon whom they depend. They have 
laboured to prove that they were good party 
men, and have found the most convenient method 
of proof in violence of language, in vigorous 
accusation, and sustained vituperation. Not 
willingly would they give cause to doubt their 
righteous hatred of their opponents. 

And the control of the party machine has been 
extended also to the press. In the reign of 
Victoria, some newspapers at least retained a 
large measure of independence. Competition, 
however, has had its inevitable result. Need 
for attracting readers, and hence advertisers, 



90 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

has led the press generally to pander to the taste 
of the many, and since violence and sensational- 
ism are obviously more attractive than a cold and 
considered judgment, the mot d'ordre for journal- 
ists has tended to be, "A sensation every day 
and at all costs." Extreme views have become 
the rule rather than the exception ; violent abuse 
or fulsome adulation of public characters has 
marked those papers which have secured the 
widest circulation. Ministers have been accused 
of the blackest crimes against the nation, the 
grossest direliction of duty. To impute treason- 
able motives to opponents has become a mere 
commonplace in the party press. And the 
attitude of the press has served to influence 
members of parliament; they have repeated in 
the House the assertions of the journalists, and 
the unsupported diatribes of irresponsible leader 
writers have inspired the perfervid speeches of 
alleged statesmen. 

Yet the nation has not been wholly convinced 
by the violence of partisans; that violence has 
not failed to produce a reaction. And this re- 
action will be intensified by the present war. 
The development of the party machine, the rise 
of the professional politician, have been made 
possible by the existence of a spirit of intolerance. 



INTERNAL POLITICS IN ENGLAND 91 

But intolerance has tended to defeat its own 
object; the very violence of partisanship has 
tended to draw attention to the folly of the 
partisans. Hostility to the domination of the 
press appeared in the Liberal victory following 
upon the resignation of the Balfour ministry. 
The majority of newspapers agreed in declaring 
that a Conservative defeat would mean the 
practical ruin of the Empire; the majority of the 
electorate agreed in disregarding the assertions of 
the press. 

Violence, however, has continued to char- 
acterise party politics. Neither party has ex- 
hibited tolerance. The abuse of ministers has 
been effectively paralleled in ministerial abuse of 
the supporters of their opponents. Opposition 
has become factious; measures have been opposed 
not by means of reasoned amendment, but by 
means of wholesale and extravagant condemna- 
tion. The acts of the government have been 
condemned without qualification; they have 
been declared to be the product of political 
immorality. Ministers have been accused of an 
entire lack of sincerity; it has been taken as a 
matter of course by their opponents that they 
are in the pay of the enemies of their country. 
Epithets such as " liar " and " traitor " have 



92 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

been bandied to and fro with little hesitation, 
and an intelligent foreigner, attending a debate 
in the House of Commons or reading the columns 
of the party press, might be excused if he con- 
cluded that the members of the British Parlia- 
ment were deliberately selected from the criminal 
classes, Nor has the violence ended in a mere 
wordy warfare. Resistance to law has been 
openly preached. One section of the press has 
hailed as true patriots those who have refused to 
obey acts of parliament, nor is there any shorter 
avenue to an heroic reputation than to adopt an 
attitude of more or less active rebellion. 

It is impossible that such violent discussions 
should be barren of result. Abuse, having largely 
taken the place of debate, and having passed all 
reasonable limits, has begun to bear fruit in 
action. The dominant party has been socially 
ostracised. Membership of the Liberal party 
has been regarded as a barrier against social inter- 
course, a barrier more real and more effective than 
the commission of serious moral offences. But 
such insistence upon political differences can 
produce only one result. The lesson of the 
French Revolution stands clear to be read by all. 
Monarchy and aristocracy were overthrown very 
largely because the real or alleged leaders of 



INTERNAL POLITICS IN ENGLAND 93 

society refused to associate with the bourgeoisie. 
To a philosopher it may be a small matter that 
he is ignored by some aristocratic dullard. But 
few men, and fewer women, are philosophers, nor 
are there any slights which so rankle and so in- 
spire to revenge as those suffered in the course of 
social life. England was trembling on the verge 
of revolution. Class hatred was growing, violence 
increasing. For the first time for many years, 
the mutterings of political discontent were 
assuming a dangerous tone; it was openly de- 
clared that since one party laboured to rally to 
its side all the influence of monarchy and aris- 
tocracy, the other party would away with the 
institutions of centuries, away with the classes 
which affected an attitude of superiority. 

From this catastrophe England has been saved 
by a catastrophe hardly less great. Nothing, 
perhaps, save a general European war could have 
served to prevent the translation of violent 
speech into violent action. But the war will so 
serve; it will accomplish that which statesman- 
ship could not avail to effect. Face to face with 
all the miseries of so vast a conflict, both parties 
have realised, as in a lightning flash, the little- 
ness of their own conduct. With the existence 
of the nation at stake, the existence of a particular 



94 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

party becomes a detail so trivial as hardly to 
merit consideration. With death threatening all, 
the outlook of mankind becomes enlarged; each 
individual is able to view life as if from some 
external standpoint, to appreciate in their true 
proportion both events and measures. His imagi- 
nation is at once aroused and sobered. He grasps 
something of the immensity of world problems; 
he realises his own insignificance, and by realisa- 
tion learns to refrain from hasty judgment, learns 
to consider the position of others, to be tolerant. 
Of this modification in human nature, of this 
development of toleration, signs have already 
appeared in the political world. The outbreak 
of war found parliament divided into two bitterly 
hostile camps; civil war was openly declared to 
be possible or probable, the treason of ministers 
was the favourite theme with members of the 
opposition. At no recent period of English 
history had so great violence characterised 
political life, at no time had personal hostility 
between party leaders or divergence between 
classes appeared so distinctly. But at the de- 
claration of war all this was changed. Party 
divisions were obliterated; the leaders of the 
official opposition vied with the Labour members 
and the Nationalists in the cordiality with which 



INTERNAL POLITICS IN ENGLAND 95 

they supported the government. Such measures 
as were needed for meeting the crisis were passed 
unanimously and by acclamation; supplies were 
granted with rapidity and willingness. 

Nothing of the kind had been seen before in the 
history of parliament. In all previous wars in 
which England has been engaged, there have 
always been numerous sympathisers with the 
enemy. The Tories under Anne vigorously 
opposed the policy of intervention in the War of 
the Spanish Succession. Chatham " rejoiced that 
America had resisted "; the war against the re- 
volted colonists was never popular. Fox and 
Sheridan openly sympathised with the ideals of 
revolutionary France, and their supporters were 
numerous enough to render repressive legislation 
an apparent necessity. During the Crimean War 
and the Boer War, the temptation to snatch party 
advantages was not resisted. It may be argued 
that the danger is now greater and more obvious; 
yet the danger was great enough when Napoleon 
had conquered Europe and when his armies were 
assembled at Boulogne. Nor can the present 
unanimity be attributed solely to the fact that 
the justice of the allied cause is palpably obvious. 
The ultimate reason lies deeper; it is to be found 
in the foundations of human nature. Uncon- 



96 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

sciously, men have wearied of violence and in- 
tolerance; unconsciously they have long been 
seeking an excuse for moderation. The spirit of 
toleration has made silent, but not the less con- 
sistent, progress ; the changing nature of man has 
been revealed clearly by the stress of a great crisis. 
Nor will this new spirit of toleration enjoy 
merely a transitory ascendancy. Those grave 
charges which have been so lightly brought 
against ministers can never be repeated; the 
most violent partisan will no longer be able to 
declare his belief in the treason of those men 
who have guided their country through the 
present dangers. The opposition cannot hence- 
forth be denied the credit due to their undoubted 
patriotism; the Nationalists can no longer be 
charged with a desire to deliver Ireland into the 
hands of the enemies of England; the Labour 
party cannot be identified with anti-patriotic 
propaganda. All parties will be forced hence- 
forward to recognise the merit of their opponents. 
Individuals are ever drawn together by sharing 
the same misfortune, by being involved in some 
common danger. Being so drawn together, they 
learn to realise the good, to overlook the evil, in 
one another; they learn toleration. The same 
lesson will be learned by political parties in Eng- 



INTERNAL POLITICS IN ENGLAND 97 

land. Faced by a great danger, which they have 
met and which they will overcome in common, 
they will the better understand one another, the 
better appreciate different points of view. To 
the recent reign of violence a reign of tolerance 
will succeed. 

The war, indeed, has opened a new era in 
politics. In the extreme sense, party govern- 
ment will almost cease to exist. Though divi- 
sion of opinion will continue, and though there 
will be no actual end of party, that violence and 
factiousness which have marked recent years will 
disappear. Recognition of sincerity in opponents 
will be the rule rather than the exception ; it will 
be the more general since it will also be more 
truly present. For the violent professional politi- 
cian there will be no place; neither parliament 
nor the constituencies will for ever agree to the 
perpetration of absurdities, and accusations of 
treason and of similar crimes based upon mere 
difference of political opinion are an absurdity. 

But to the existence of the professional politi- 
cian the violence of party politics must be mainly 
attributed; his disappearance can only lead to a 
greater degree of toleration, as it will indeed be 
caused by a growth of toleration. And since he 
must be replaced, the new type of member can 



98 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

be found only in the man of more independent 
views. The nominee of the party caucus will no 
longer be the most acceptable candidate. His 
acceptability has depended generally upon his 
political orthodoxy, upon his willingness to en- 
gage in violent opposition, even upon a certain 
lack of scrupulousness. Violence being dis- 
credited, the strong party man will possess far 
lower worth. And the strong party man being 
no longer favoured, his place being taken by men 
of wider views and greater toleration, the power 
and influence of party organisation will be under- 
mined; the days of strict control will pass, and 
liberty will be restored to the House of Commons 
through the medium of the present war, as it will 
be preserved to the continent of Europe. 

From this one obvious result will follow. In 
recent years, it has been largely possible to coerce 
minorities by means of the mechanical majority 
possessed by the ministry of the day. Fear of 
the consequences of a quarrel with the central 
office of the party, knowledge that re-election 
would be well-nigh impossible save through the 
support of the party machine, has been sufficient 
to deter members from voting against their 
leaders, at least in any very critical division. 
The dominant party has thus been able to 



INTERNAL POLITICS IN ENGLAND 99 

trample upon the minority. Debate has been 
curtailed; concessions have been refused; a 
victory at the polls has been pushed to its extreme 
conclusion. 

And this has been more the case owing to the 
fact that each party has consistently denied the 
sincerity of the other, has consistently claimed 
for itself the monopoly of political virtue, and 
hence has feared stultification if it has made 
any concessions. If a ministry has abated any 
considerable part of its original demands, the 
opposition have forthwith accused it of having 
confessed the iniquity of its whole policy. If the 
opposition have admitted the excellence of any 
part of the ministerial programme, they have 
forthwith been accused of factiousness in their 
resistance to the other items of that programme. 
Violence has begotten violence; extreme views 
have led to greater extremes. Intolerance having 
secured an ascendancy, toleration has been hailed 
as weakness, has become almost impossible. 

But the majority of all parties, whether in 
the House or in the constituencies, has perhaps 
generally recognised the futility of bigoted parti- 
sanship, has longed to return to a saner position. 
The present war affords the desired opportunity. 
Teaching all parties to recognise merit in their 



ioo THE NATIONS AT WAR 

opponents, that merit being publicly proclaimed 
in the press, toleration has at last become possible. 
Concessions to a minority will no longer be re- 
garded as proof of weakness or of insincerity; the 
minority will no longer believe, or profess to 
believe, that the possession of a numerical 
majority is incompatible with the possession of 
common honesty. Members, convinced of the 
value of toleration, crediting their opponents 
with some political virtue, freed from the arbi- 
trary control of the party caucus, will become 
more independent and will be ready to resist the 
dictation of the party whips. That readiness 
will serve to restrain oppressive legislation; 
measures will be conceived with more regard for 
those who are in opposition to them. Diverg- 
ence of opinion being respected, statesmanship 
will triumph over partisanship; though political 
parties will continue to exist, legislation will more 
and more assume a national and non-party 
character. 

This result, proceeding largely from the changed 
character of members, will serve to emphasise 
that change. The demand of the constituencies 
will be for men of sincerity and tolerance ; candi- 
dates will be compelled to possess the qualities 
demanded, as they have been compelled hitherto 



INTERNAL POLITICS IN ENGLAND 101 

to possess the quality of party loyalty in an ex- 
treme form. They will be driven to moderation, 
as they have been driven to violence, but modera- 
tion will already be acceptable to them, since the 
evils of violence will have become apparent. 

They will be equally forced to give a more 
genuine consideration to the wishes and needs of 
the people at large. Prior to the Industrial Re- 
volution, the desires and opinions of the many 
were almost deliberately disregarded by parlia- 
ment; prohibition of the reporting of debates 
was defended on the very ground that their publi- 
cation would make members accountable to their 
constituents. The decline of the feudal spirit, 
following upon great economic changes, drove the 
ruling class to the conciliation of the ruled. 
Though some still attempted to preserve an 
attitude of olympian detachment, the majority 
in both parties proclaimed their devotion to the 
welfare of the many, soliciting votes, not as being 
natural rulers but as being the servants of the 
people. The service was dubiously sincere; the 
people were rather exploited for the benefit of 
the classes from which members of parliament 
were drawn, and the evolution of the Labour 
party suggested that the many were not blind to 
the truth. But this exploitation has been possible 



ioz THE NATIONS AT WAR 

mainly owing to the strength of party organisa- 
tion. With the decline of the caucus it will 
become more difficult, with the development of 
sincerity it will become impossible, with the 
growth of toleration, and hence of true sym- 
pathy, it will no longer be attempted or desired. 
Government will be truly for the people. 

Government will also be by the people. What- 
ever may be asserted as to the growth of demo- 
cracy in England, it is still true to-day, no less 
than it has been true in the past, that there is a 
governing class. The majority of members of 
parliament have been drawn from the wealthier 
classes, from those who are able to make it worth 
the while of the local association to select them, 
of the central office to support them. Efficient 
party organisation demands constant funds. 
Seats are consequently bought at the present 
day, perhaps less openly, but hardly less cer- 
tainly, than they were in the period prior to the 
Reform Act and the Corrupt Practices Act. 

With the decline of party organisation, how- 
ever, the expenses of candidature and of member- 
ship will be alike reduced; a parliamentary 
career will be open to larger numbers, and the 
present ruling class will be deprived of the basis 
of their power. Merit will be a better recom- 



INTERNAL POLITICS IN ENGLAND 103 

mendation than wealth. And men of merit will 
be the more attracted to parliament since, as 
members, they will no longer be the slaves of 
party whips, almost unable to speak or vote save 
as party considerations demand. 

The same result will be hastened by the 
very growth of toleration. Mutual distrust and 
jealousy between classes will decline, each having 
learned the better qualities of the other. In the 
present war, men of all classes are to be found 
alike among the officers and in the rank and file, 
non-commissioned officers have been promoted 
and will be promoted in increasing numbers; 
members of those classes from which officers have 
normally been drawn have enlisted and will en- 
list in the ranks. The result can only be a great 
weakening of class distinctions. Familiarity will 
breed not contempt but a fuller sympathy; the 
former rulers will learn the merit of service, the 
former subjects will attain capacity for rule. 
Realising that it has no monopoly of capacity 
for government, the ruling class will also cease to 
desire any such monopoly. 

England has often been described as a veiled 
republic; all that is most valuable in the re- 
publican spirit will be developed by this war. 
The duty of the rich to consider the poor, the 



io 4 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

duty of the poor to realise that wealth is not 
necessarily ill-gotten and that capital has its 
part to play in the work of production, will be 
alike realised and performed. Class distinctions, 
class hatred, the snobbery of birth and wealth, of 
intellect and of poverty, will tend to pass away, 
and the English people, refined in the fire of a life 
and death conflict, will enter upon a new era of 
mutual tolerance, of greater sympathy, and of 
truer liberty. 



VI 

INTERNAL POLITICS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 

When many individuals are involved in some 
common calamity, they are all affected by it, but 
to a different extent and in different ways, owing 
to divergences of character and temperament. 
One is exalted and refined by misfortune, another 
is driven to despair. One is subjected to an 
enduring influence ; another, more volatile, easily 
forgets the past and readily resumes his normal 
habit of life. Between nations there are diverg- 
ences as great as between individuals; differences 
of national character, indeed, are generally better 
appreciated than are the somewhat more subtle 
differences between members of the same race. 
Thus, though the present war will affect all 
nations, its influence will vary somewhat both in 
depth and extent, owing to the existence of vary- 
ing national characteristics and institutions. 
While the general ultimate result will be similar 
in every case, the immediate results will be 
dissimilar. 
The nature of that general result can be clearly 
105 



106 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

foreseen. The victory of the allies will be the 
victory of toleration, involving the application of 
the principle of free assent to the relations of state 
with state. The same principle will be applied 
also to internal affairs. The false opinion that 
the true basis of international relations is, and 
can only be, a sentiment of hostility will be dissi- 
pated; there will no longer be blind submission 
to some supposed law of necessity. The former 
imperial idea of government will vanish with the 
recognition of nationality. Authority will be 
based upon reasoned popular approval; in every 
state the people themselves will rule. 

Hitherto, though representative institutions 
have in theory been almost universally estab- 
lished, government has rested with a ruling class 
rather than with the many. A more or less 
militarist regime has been generally accepted, 
submission to such a regime being supposed to 
be the only means by which national existence 
could be preserved or national progress made 
possible. In the German Empire especially, this 
system has prevailed; the Prussian military caste 
has ruled almost despotically. Their govern- 
ment has been ultimately based upon the accept- 
ance of a false theory of international politics; it 
has led to the adoption of a faulty foreign policy. 



POLITICS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 107 

Germany has become involved in an attempt to 
secure a predominant position in Europe and in 
the world by means of a war of aggression. That 
aggression will be unsuccessful, and the attempt 
to establish a practical hegemony will result in 
disaster for the German Empire, as similar 
attempts have resulted in disaster for other 
states in the past. 

Forthwith, the ascendancy of a ruling class, 
and more particularly of a military ruling class, 
will be everywhere discredited. The masses will 
no longer admit the necessity for a system which 
they have always hated; the end for which that 
system was created will not have been attained 
even by the state which had adopted it most 
thoroughly, for it will not avail to save Germany 
from defeat and Prussia from humiliation. The 
way will be thus prepared for the adoption of a 
different system of government; the doctrine of 
free assent will win adherents and the victory of 
toleration will be ensured. Already there has 
appeared an ever-increasing disbelief in the 
prevalent theory of international politics and all 
which that theory implies; the present war will 
increase that disbelief until it amounts to cer- 
tainty of past error, and will thereby hasten the 
triumph of less cynical principles. 



io8 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

That triumph will be largely unopposed. 
Experience of the calamities of war will teach a 
lesson even to those states which are not them- 
selves belligerent; the evils of conflict will be 
better realised, and the evils of that intolerance 
from which all conflict arises better understood. 
The spirit of toleration will develop, and with it 
a desire to understand others; sympathy will be 
deepened. But it is to lack of sympathy that the 
desire of one class to dominate must be mainly 
attributed; when class desires to understand 
class, hatred and jealousy between them naturally 
disappear. Popular government in the truest 
sense is the inevitable consequence. There will 
be neither rule of the few by the many, nor of the 
many by the few; there will be neither rule of 
the rich by the poor, nor of the poor by the rich. 
Class distinctions will cease to be of political 
importance; mutual toleration will secure that 
which it alone can secure, the establishment of 
government based upon the sympathetic co- 
operation of all sections of the community. 
Violent strife will cease at home no less than 
abroad; to an era of open or concealed conflict 
there will succeed an era of peace. 

Such internal peace has often been impaired, 
and even rendered impossible, by the strife of 



POLITICS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 109 

nationalities. But the present war will end in 
the acceptance of nationality as the broad basis 
of international society, and its acceptance will 
react upon internal politics. A cause, and 
perhaps the most potent cause, of strife will be 
removed. In the past, a great crisis has often 
drawn together hostile parties or races within a 
country, as it has drawn together rival states. 
Maria Theresa, threatened by Frederic the Great, 
appealed with success to the very Magyars who 
had long and bitterly opposed Habsburg rule. 
After Jena, the dominant Prussian aristocracy 
won generous support from the peasantry whom 
they had oppressed. But in each case, and in 
many other like cases, the alliance was only 
temporary; when the crisis was passed, old 
antipathies revived. 

Their revival was due to the repression of 
nationalism and to the absence of toleration. 
The Magyars were actuated less by any liking 
for the Habsburgs than by hostility to the 
Hohenzollerns; the Prussian peasantry were 
moved less by affection for the nobles than by 
loathing for the French. Each alliance was 
based upon hatred rather than upon love; having 
attained its immediate object, it naturally dis- 
solved. Yet neither would have dissolved if 



no THE NATIONS AT WAR 

the German element in the Austrian dominions 
had learned to appreciate the Magyar standpoint, 
if the Prussian aristocracy had been moved 
sincerely to consider the claims and to redress 
the grievances of the peasants. Neither would 
have been temporary, if the dominant party had 
been less intolerant, if it had been more ready 
to consider the claims and opinions of others. 
They were shattered by lack of toleration, of any 
desire to attain a true union of hearts. 

At the present moment, those causes which 
have hitherto rendered alliances between rulers 
and ruled, or between races acknowledging some 
common ruler, imperfect and transitory are at 
least less operative. The factors which make 
for the permanence of such alliances are more 
potent. Nationality has in a measure been 
accepted as a principle of policy; its fuller accept- 
ance will follow upon the victory of the allies. 
One great source of conflict will be thus removed ; 
nationalities will be no longer repressed, no longer 
driven to right for recognition. At the same 
time, the growth of toleration will serve to destroy 
the desire of one race or of one class to possess 
domination, as it will destroy the desire of one 
state to possess domination. The root of strife 
is intolerance; that root will be destroyed. 



POLITICS IN OTHER COUNTRIES in 

Having experienced calamities far greater than 
any which have yet befallen it, the world will 
profit from that experience. Ardently desirous 
that strife, whether between states or between 
parties within a state, should cease, mankind 
will learn at last the means by which peace may 
be attained. The merit of toleration, the blessed- 
ness of sympathy, will be appreciated, and though 
differences of opinion will still exist, they will be 
tempered by a spirit of moderation; they will 
no longer lead to violent conflict, but will rather 
supply the basis of a deeper and truer unity. 

In all countries the same lesson will be learned, 
the same ultimate result will be produced. But 
it is clear that the immediate effects will vary 
in different lands. The states which remain 
neutral will, at least for a while, be less affected 
than those which are belligerent. They will have 
a slighter appreciation of the principles and issues 
involved ; they will experience the evils of conflict 
less acutely, and be proportionately less con- 
vinced of the necessity for rooting out the seed 
of strife. The lessons of the war will be learned 
more slowly, the revolution in their system of 
government will be more gradual. And the 
extent of the change produced by the war will 
vary also according to the nature of the existing 



ii2 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

institutions of each state. Those which have 
given themselves over to the dominion of a ruling 
class will be more deeply influenced than those 
in which popular government is already estab- 
lished. That which in the first will be revolution, 
in the second will be little more than normal 
development. 

Thus France after the war will be little different 
from the France of yesterday. The general 
framework of her existing government will be 
preserved; the changes resulting will be akin to 
those which will occur in England. The violence 
of party politics will be minimised. At present, 
in France, more than in any other land, political 
differences are a bar to social intercourse. Now 
men of all parties are facing death together in 
a common cause, a better understanding must 
result. That intolerance which has dictated 
policy will fade away; toleration will take its 
place. As in England, the professional politician 
will lose his ascendancy: statesmanship will be 
substituted for partisanship as the motive for 
legislation. There will be a change, and a 
profound change, in the spirit of French politics, 
but the Republic will not be endangered ; it will 
rather secure a greater vitality and permanence. 

On the other hand, in Russia the results of the 



POLITICS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 113 

war will be obviously more far-reaching, obviously 
more dramatic. Yet though a revolution will 
occur, it will be a peaceful revolution. In a sense, 
indeed, it has already been accomplished. The 
war has united all the peoples of the Russian 
Empire as they have never before been united. 
The Poles have responded loyally to the call to 
arms; the Finns have forgotten the long political 
persecution to which they have been subjected. 
The Teutonic colonies in the interior have peti- 
tioned that they may be allowed to abandon the 
epithet " German/' which they have hitherto 
borne with pride; the Jews, long subjected to 
torture, physical and mental, have joined whole- 
heartedly in the common cause. A new spirit 
pervades the Russian Empire. 

Small incidents really afford a better indication 
of the popular mind than do the grave declarations 
of statesmen and the manifestoes of political 
parties. One such incident vividly illustrates 
the growth of toleration in Russia. As her troops 
entered Galicia, officers and men, Orthodox 
though they were, asked and received the bless- 
ings of Catholic priests; those who sought and 
those who gave forgot their differences of belief, 
remembered only that they were united in a great 
crusade for liberty. But of all forms of toleration, 



ii4 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

religious toleration is most hard to attain. Men 
who feel strongly the truth of their own creed 
almost naturally incline to regard those who 
adhere to another Church as the enemies of God. 
The Russians are emphatically a religious race. 
It has been contended with some plausibility 
that an appeal to their religious enthusiasm is the 
one appeal which they never hear unmoved ; since 
the days of Ivan the Terrible, they have fought 
the battle of the Cross against the Crescent. If 
religious toleration has made progress with them, 
other forms of toleration will assuredly make 
progress also, and with such progress comes 
political liberty. The hopes that Russian liberals 
and the more acute observers of the Russian 
people have freely expressed since the present 
war began will not be falsified by any intolerance 
on the part of the Slav race. 

Nor will the ruling class attempt resistance. 
They will rather favour the new movement. 
Despite its faults and despite the crimes of which 
it has been guilty, the government of Nicholas II. 
has at least become a modified autocracy; the 
mere institution of the Duma marked the abandon- 
ment of absolutism pure and simple. Gradually, 
a more liberal spirit has begun to pervade the 
administration, and if, even at the present 






POLITICS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 115 

moment, many political exiles are denied the 
privilege of assisting their country, there have 
not been lacking signs that the government is 
ready to make amends. Justice has been pro- 
mised to the Poles; those exiles who have re- 
turned have not met with the punishment which 
a strict interpretation of the law would involve. 
Even the vigour of Russian hatred towards 
Germany suggests the approaching establishment 
of greater liberty at home. The humiliation of 
Prussia will react upon internal politics, and will 
facilitate the sweeping away for ever of that 
Teutonic domination under which Russia has so 
long groaned and from which she has endured so 
much misery. The way is indeed opened for the 
Slavs to realise their destiny. Petersburg has 
become Petrograd in name ; it cannot be doubted 
that it will so become in spirit. 

And history suggests the probability of a 
peaceful revolution in Russia. There are nume- 
rous instances of a successful struggle against 
attempted domination culminating in the develop- 
ment of internal liberty within those states by 
which the aggressor has been thwarted. The 
Italian cities, having defeated Frederic Bar- 
barossa, were organised on a more democratic 
basis. The Dutch overcame Philip II., and in 



u6 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

the United Provinces republicanism gained a 
triumph over the attempted monarchism of the 
House of Orange. The revolt of the South 
German states against Napoleon was followed 
by the introduction of a liberal spirit into their 
administration. If, upon occasion, such victories 
have served merely to confirm despotism, this has 
not occurred when the people have taken their 
share in the war freely and consciously. It has 
been the result of such wars as have in reality 
been forced upon the nation by some dominant 
caste, when the people have been deceived and 
have been inspired only by some sentiment of 
obedience, or when external pressure has pre- 
vented the natural development of the victorious 
state. 

In Russia, the present war is emphatically a 
people's war; it has gained the cordial support 
of the very men who might have been expected 
to seize the occasion to embarrass a government 
from which they have received little good, to the 
principles and methods of which they have been 
consistently opposed. It is certain enough that 
no external influence will be exerted to prevent 
the growth of liberty. Rather, the mere fact 
that Russia is allied with England and France 
is a potential guarantee that her institutions will 



POLITICS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 117 

be more closely conformed to those of her allies. 
England has never, France but rarely, been deaf 
to the appeals of the weak and oppressed; both 
have risked something and have suffered much 
in the cause of liberty. The Russian people are 
fighting for the cause of freedom; when victory 
has been gained, the Slavs will share in that 
liberty, for the sake of which they have ever been 
willing to die and for the sake of which they now 
endure that they may also conquer. 

Upon Austria - Hungary and upon Germany 
the immediate effects of the conflict will be more 
profound, productive of more striking changes. 
The most noteworthy feature of the internal 
organisation of the Dual Monarchy is the Germano- 
Magyar alliance, the league between two dominant 
races to repress and to hold in subjection the other 
peoples of the Habsburg dominions. If this 
system has hardly attained a large measure of 
success, it has at least subsisted; discontent, 
however prevalent, has at least not culminated 
in actual revolution. 

Two factors have contributed to produce this 
result. Of all European states, Austria-Hungary 
has been least affected by those political or mental 
revolutions which have disturbed the continent. 
A repressive system has been generally main- 



n8 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

tained, and has been, on the whole, little resisted. 
Austria has possessed one reforming ruler, Joseph 
II. ; his methods were autocratic to a degree, and 
his attitude towards his subjects is effectively 
illustrated by his treatment of the Bohemian 
deists, who were whipped " because they claimed 
to be something which they did not comprehend." 
Joseph's successors have not even attempted 
to be benevolent despots. Alike at home and 
abroad, they have been devoted to the preserva- 
tion of the status quo, and such changes as have 
occurred have resulted not from any change in 
the spirit of the government, but from the opera- 
tion of vigorous popular discontent. 

But since no system of government can be 
maintained save by the assent, active or passive, 
of the subjects, the mere fact that arbitrary or 
semi-arbitrary rule has so long continued in 
Austria - Hungary suggests, and even proves, 
that the subjects of the Habsburgs have been 
and are habituated to submission. Their political 
sense has been deadened by centuries of repression, 
and they have therefore been less susceptible to 
the influences which have moved other nations. 
Their minds have been saturated with the spirit 
of submission; they have hardly thought of 
desiring or of demanding power to rule themselves. 



POLITICS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 119 

Even if they had so desired, their expression 
of their desire would in all probability have been 
prevented by supposed necessity. Austria- 
Hungary is a haphazard collection of territories, 
united by a series of political accidents. War 
and marriage, and more especially the latter, 
have increased the originally scanty Habsburg 
domains; birth and death seem to have con- 
spired through the ages to augment the possessions 
of that " fortunate " family. Hence any change 
has seemed to threaten the dissolution of an 
empire, a large part of which appears more 
properly to belong to other states. 

The dominant peoples in the Dual Monarchy 
have realised this danger of disruption; they have 
consented to the existing regime from fear that 
its destruction might entail worse evils than its 
maintenance. Germans and Magyars have hated 
each other; they have feared as well as hated 
the Slavs, since the might of Russia has ever 
loomed in the political background, seeming 
to threaten common subjection to the Tsar as 
the penalty for the gratification of mutual dislike. 
And the Slavs themselves, uncertain of the 
treatment which they would receive at the hands 
of a conquering Russia, mistrustful of their own 
capacity for standing alone, permeated with that 



izo THE NATIONS AT WAR 

pessimism which has been characteristic of their 
race, have endured domination, waiting for that 
day when their brothers across the Danube should 
be able to effect their deliverance. The custom of 
centuries and dread of the future have served to 
hold revolution and the desire for liberty in check. 
Yet in Austria-Hungary, as in every other state, 
government must at least justify itself in the 
opinion of the political majority. Though the 
passive assent of subjects is sufficient to prevent 
revolution, that assent must yet be given per- 
manently, and it will not be so given unless 
government fulfils at least its most elementary 
function. Protection must be accorded; the 
independence of the state must be preserved; 
foreign conquest must be prevented. So long 
as they could afford such protection, the Habs- 
burgs at least supplied a potential justification 
of their rule; failing to supply it, there remains 
no possible excuse for a system which consists 
in little more than the denial to many races of 
any trace of national existence. The defeat of 
the Habsburgs in the present war is certain; it 
is not doubtful that the defeat will be decisive. 
Their system will be discredited and will fall, 
and by its fall it will at last secure the triumph of 
political liberty in the Dual Monarchy. 



POLITICS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 121 

But political liberty in Austria-Hungary, to 
an even greater extent than elsewhere, implies 
nationalism. In so heterogeneous a state there 
can be no change which will not involve partial, 
if not entire, disruption. The rule of Germans 
and Magyars will assuredly be ended; Slavs, 
Roumans and Italians can no longer be kept in 
subjection. It may be doubtful whether or no 
the name of Austria-Hungary will continue to 
figure on the map of Europe. Yet even if it 
does so figure, the victory of the allies will involve 
changes greater and more violent in proportion 
as there is an entire absence of any toleration in 
the existing order. The long-foretold fall of 
Austria may and probably will occur; in any 
case, triumphant nationalism will achieve the 
end for which it has so long striven. Domination 
will cease; racial equality will be established. 

Upon Austria's ally the effect of the war will 
be hardly less profound. The German Empire 
has also been organised upon a basis of coercion 
rather than upon a basis of free assent ; political 
power has rested rather with the Prussian military 
caste than with the German people. It would, 
indeed, be idle to pretend that the war does not, 
in a sense, command popular support ; the days, 
if ever there were such days, when men could be 



122 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

driven like dumb oxen to the slaughter have 
passed away. When communications were de- 
ficient, when there was no press, when foreign 
intelligence was scanty, delayed and dubious, it 
was difficult to organise public opinion. The 
influence of government was enhanced by the 
ignorance of subjects, and a line of policy might 
be long followed before opposition to it could 
become effective. 

But at the present day, news is rapidly trans- 
mitted, ideas are rapidly disseminated, nor need 
any man long remain unacquainted with the 
sentiments of his fellows. As a result, it is almost 
impossible to adopt and to pursue any policy for 
an appreciable period unless that policy com- 
mands at least the passive assent of a majority 
in the nation. Least of all can an unpopular 
war be prosecuted. War affects every section 
of the community, its consequences are brought 
home to every individual with graphic force, 
and the misery inseparable from violent strife 
will only be endured if it is believed that the 
ultimate good outweighs the present evil. Had 
the German people been actively hostile to the 
present war, either that war would not have 
occurred or its duration would have been brief 
indeed. 



POLITICS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 123 

Yet, though the war has received popular 
support in Germany, though there has been no 
definite refusal to perform military service, it 
has secured support in a very different sense 
from the sense in which it has gained support 
in the allied states. For the German Empire 
it is no " people's war/' as was the historic 
conflict with Napoleon, as were those struggles 
against Austria and France by means of which 
national unity was attained. The war is sup- 
ported, and even applauded, by the many, but 
it has won support and applause only because 
both its causes and its character have been 
unappreciated, because the incubus of militarism 
has benumbed the mentality of the German 
people. The race has been deceived ; its freedom 
of thought has been crushed and stifled by the 
dominant Prussian minority, until it has learned 
to believe that its salvation, its very life, depends 
upon implicit obedience to the commands of the 
general staff. 

It is, indeed, very necessary to draw a clear 
distinction between the dominant military caste 
and the true German people, between the devotees 
of efficiency and the intellectual heirs of Luther 
and Goethe. It is not without significance that 
those philosophers who have won the favour 



124 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

of Prussian officialdom are not Germans. They 
are renegade Slavs; they have preserved those 
barbarous characteristics which they are so ready 
to praise in themselves, so ready to reprobate in 
others. It is the influence of a militarist caste, 
availing itself of the political myth of Alsace- 
Lorraine, which has led the German people to 
acquiesce in, and even actively to support, that 
policy which has produced the present war. The 
people are deceived though not corrupted; they 
are deceived by the militarists, though not cor- 
rupted to preference for the militarist regime. 
The war is the war of Prussian ascendancy. It 
is being fought that the south may still submit 
to be bullied and coerced. It is a defensive war 
in that it is an attempt to check the growth of 
political liberty, an attempt to find some new 
Reichsland, for the sake of defending and retain- 
ing which the existing order may be still endured 
by those whose deepest convictions impel them 
to oppose it. 

And as the war is the war of Prussian militarism, 
not the war of the German people, so it is the last 
war which that militarism will ever wage. To 
any civilised people, the rule of soldiers is intoler- 
able save upon the ground of extreme necessity. 
The fiction that such a necessity existed in the 



POLITICS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 125 

German Empire was created by Bismarck; it 
has been maintained by the mere fact that Alsace 
and Lorraine were annexed. But in recent years 
the fiction has been weakened. The concession 
of self-government to the Reichsland was an 
admission that the people of that district could 
at least be trusted to refrain from actual rebellion, 
and hence suggested that the necessity for the 
militarist regime had passed away, that the 
Prussian allegation that such a regime was 
essential for the preservation of the conquests 
made from France was no longer justified. 

Too late, the dominant party realised the 
educational effect of their momentary weakness; 
too late, they realised that they had informed 
Germany that their ascendancy was no longer 
necessary for national self-preservation. But 
there was one method by which they might 
repair their error, and that method they at once 
adopted. Resolved at all costs to preserve their 
ascendancy, they embarked upon a war of aggres- 
sion, availing themselves of the prevalent spirit 
of obedience in Germany. The disruption of the 
European concert seemed to afford an opportunity ; 
they believed or hoped that the spirit of other 
nations was as selfish and unscrupulous as that 
which filled their own hearts. Prussia forced 



126 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

war upon Germany, not in obedience to the real 
desire of the German people, but in order that the 
deception of that people might be continued, 
that a second Alsace might be found for the 
defence of which Prussian military despotism 
might still be accepted. 

The attempt to bolster up a tottering despotism 
has been made; the attempt will fail. Blunder 
has followed blunder, miscalculation has followed 
miscalculation, crime has followed crime. Prussia 
has ensured her defeat not by any neglect of 
military precautions but by disregard of those 
moral factors without the support of which all 
military precautions are vain. Physical force 
may accomplish much; it can never overcome 
those who possess the strength derived from 
moral conviction. As the military caste is 
already discredited in the world at large by the 
mistakes and crimes which it has committed, so 
it will be discredited in Germany by the defeat 
which it will sustain. The German people will 
be undeceived. 

Success may be an effective justification of 
any system; apparent success has seemed to 
justify even the Prussian system. To all popular 
demands the dominant class has answered, '* The 
Fatherland in danger! " a cry as idle and as 



POLITICS IN OTHER COUNTRIES 127 

insincere as was the cry " The Church in danger ! " 
on the lips of a Bolingbroke. But now the 
Fatherland is indeed in danger. It has been 
brought into peril by that very militarism, by 
that very worship of efficiency, which was pro- 
fessedly designed to preserve it from all harm. 
Here there is a lesson to be learned, here there is a 
lesson which will be learned. Adversity will fall 
upon the German people, and from adversity they 
will be taught that they have been deceived, that 
they have followed all too readily the falsest of 
guides, that in their empire the blind have been 
veritably leaders of the blind. That inborn 
love of freedom, which destroyed the legions of 
Varus and which cast off the yoke of an alien 
church, which hurled Napoleon back across the 
Rhine and which won national life from the living 
death of the Germanic Confederation, will once 
more assert itself. 

The Hohenzollerns were offered a glorious des- 
tiny; they were called upon to lead a free and 
united people. They made the great refusal. Re- 
tribution has waited long; retribution will now 
fall upon them. Prussian domination, and all 
that it implies, will be swept away. True repre- 
sentative government will be established upon 
the ruins of a military despotism; responsible 



128 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

ministers will take the place of imperial nominees. 
The German people will be delivered from the 
soul-destroying tyranny of false fear, fear of 
France, fear of Russia, fear of England; they will 
be delivered from that terror which has been so 
diligently instilled into their minds by a ruling 
class trembling for its own ascendancy. De- 
livered, they will be enabled to pursue their high 
destiny, enabled to devote themselves to that 
work for humanity for which they are so well, so 
truly, fitted. The spirit of Germany will triumph 
over that of Prussia, the teaching of native 
philosophers will replace that of pseudo-Slavs, 
the religion of Luther will prevail over the 
materialism of the apostles of blood and iron. 
When the allied armies enter the Prussian capital, 
they will not appear as the heralds of an era of 
oppression; they will announce to the German 
people the dawn of liberty. 



VII 

MILITARISM 

Those who are optimistic enough to hope that 
out of evil good may come, that the calamities 
which the world is now enduring will at the last 
result in benefit for mankind, have one great 
source of dread. Before the end is reached, there 
must be some further development of the military 
machine. Even England has proceeded to the 
construction of a vast army; over her, the least 
militarist of all the great powers, there is passing a 
wave of martial enthusiasm unparalleled in her 
history. That the nation should so rise to resist 
German aggression is wholly admirable, but it 
will be little profit to the world if the destruction 
of Prussian militarism results only in the substitu- 
tion for it of the militarism of the Triple Entente. 
The war can only add to the reputation of armies, 
and in this lies cause enough for concern as to 
the future. 

History emphasises the justice of such concern. 

Former wars have not resulted in any abandon- 
129 1 



130 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

ment of military preparations, in the development 
of sincere devotion to the ways of peace. Success- 
ful soldiers have availed themselves of their 
popularity with the many and of reputation 
gained on the field of battle, to attempt the 
direction of internal affairs. They have occupied 
positions which should have been held by states- 
men and have introduced into the cabinet the 
ideas and maxims of the camp. Wellington 
aspired to be a minister because he had won 
Waterloo; for no other reason was he tolerated 
as the holder of high political office. The 
supremacy of militarism in the German Empire 
was established at Koniggratz and Sedan; mere 
civilians were forced to bow before a victorious 
soldiery. 

Victory, and enthusiasm for those by whom 
the victory has been gained, has often perverted 
the popular mind. The resultant triumph of 
militarism has been enhanced and confirmed 
by a curious delusion which seems often to over- 
come nations on emergence from any war whether 
successful or unsuccessful. It is perhaps only 
natural that the professional soldiers and sailors 
should believe war to be the normal, peace an 
abnormal, condition; the wish is father to the 
thought. But it is almost a commonplace of 



MILITARISM 131 

history that at the end of any war its renewal 
is persistently feared. The most complete 
triumphs do not serve to reassure men's minds. 
When the Armada had been dispersed, England 
remained constantly in dread of a renewal of 
the attempt; the "phantom Armada" caused 
more trepidation than did the reality. After 
Sedan, Germany was genuinely afraid of a French 
attack upon her; her whole policy was directed 
to guard against this fancied danger, and she 
even betrayed her ally, Austria, to Russia in an 
access of such fear. 

There is no doubt that when the present con- 
flict is ended, war-scares will be for a time frequent, 
and those who keep their heads and discredit 
the stories of a renewed German attack, will be 
reminded of the suddenness with which the 
present storm broke, will be regarded as unable 
to read the signs of the times. It is, therefore, 
not without reason that many expect a multiplica- 
tion of the very evils from which the world has 
suffered for the last forty years. A further 
increase of armaments may well seem to be the 
prospect when peace has been restored. It may 
well be feared that even those states which have 
hitherto avoided conscription will be forced to 
adopt it, that the doctrine of the " nation in 



132 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

arms " will in the near future attain a far greater 
ascendancy. 

Such would indeed be the outcome of the war 
if Germany were victorious. All fears would be 
justified a thousandfold. That victory would be 
the victory of the militarist theory. It would 
not be the victory of the German people, but of 
Prussian militarism, of the most reactionary and 
soulless caste that the world has ever seen. It 
would mean the triumph of those to whom nothing 
is sacred, by whom nothing is spared; of those 
who respect neither the dignity of age nor the 
innocence of childhood, neither the sanctity of 
motherhood nor the purity of maidenhood; of 
those whose excuse for all crimes is the plea 
that necessity knows no law, who answer the 
cries of humanity with the brutal retort that war 
is war, whose creed is the worship of force. To 
such a triumph the world could never submit. 
Though the armies of the allies were annihilated, 
though Paris and London shared the fate of 
Louvain, though every ship in the allied navies 
were sunk, still resistance would continue, until 
mankind had turned defeat to victory. For the 
very salvation of the race, all nations would be 
driven to meet the militarists with their own 
weapons, to train every man, to leave nothing 



MILITARISM 133 

undone which might fit them for the war of 
liberation. 

But Germany will not gain even a passing 
triumph. Victory will rest with the allies, and 
to the eternal good of the human race, the allies 
are cast in that softer mould which so arouses 
the contempt of the apostles of blood and iron. 
Victory will fall to those who have valued honour 
more than material profit, who admit that the 
weak have a right to live in freedom, who have 
dared do reverence to a " moth-eaten scrap of 
paper." And herein lies hope that the war will 
secure the destruction of that militarism by which 
it was produced. 

For the allies are the champions of international 
morality; they deny that might is right, they 
preach equality. If they used their victory to 
establish their own arbitrary rule, if they relied 
upon force, they would be untrue to themselves; 
they would propagate that very principle against 
which they have taken up arms. There is reason 
enough for believing that the allies will not be 
untrue to their principles; there is, perhaps, the 
better reason since they would hardly be able to 
be untrue even if the ruling classes in each state 
so desired. They would be forbidden by their 
own people, who have learned the lessons to be 
drawn from the present state of Europe. 



134 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

Europe is to-day an armed camp. Nations 
have multiplied their preparations for war, 
forming armies so vast that the imagination can 
scarcely realise their numbers. Veritable walls 
of steel have been erected along the frontiers of 
the great powers; all the appliances of modern 
science, all the ingenuity of the human mind, 
have been bent to the perfecting of engines of 
destruction. Men have seemed to live mainly 
in order that they may learn to take life more 
effectively; few have been allowed to escape the 
obligation of learning at least the rudiments of 
the art of killing. " The nation in arms " has 
become the watchword of statesmen; it has 
become a realised ideal in most continental 
countries. Whatever may be the destined employ- 
ment of an individual, some portion of his life 
at least has been spent in the profession of arms. 
By such means, the powers have provided them- 
selves with a multitude of trained men, highly 
efficient, though not professional, soldiers. 

The cause of this condition of affairs is clear. 
It has been accepted as an axiom of politics that 
all nations are hostile to one another, that they 
wait only for an occasion to strike some deadly 
blow at a rival. If a state finds a chance, 
even a remote chance, of inflicting some decisive 






MILITARISM 135 

defeat upon a neighbour, it will be restrained 
neither by the sacredness of treaties nor by the 
curb of international law, neither by thoughts of 
a common civilisation nor by considerations of 
economic interest. It therefore behoves every 
state to guard against a sudden attack. All its 
resources and energy must be devoted to the task 
of preparing for the inevitable moment; it can 
have no hope of peace unless it can compel 
respect and fear. The fiction that jealousy and 
hatred must always subsist between nations has 
been generally accepted, and has produced the 
acceptance also of the maxim, Si vis pacem, para 
helium. Not only must the state be prepared, 
every man in the state must be prepared. Armies 
must be numerous, and in the very interest of 
industry, that the work of production may not 
be hopelessly impeded, conscription follows as a 
matter of course. In place of a professional 
army, which would withdraw the best part of 
the nation's manhood from economic employ- 
ment, all must receive a degree of training 
sufficient to fit them to serve their country in the 
field. Only thus can peace be secured; the normal 
development of a nation may be checked, but with- 
out such safeguards it would be entirely impossible 
that there should be any development at all. 



136 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

These theories, however, are based upon 
fallacies which have already been partially 
exploded. Nations have prepared for war with 
a completeness and a vigour unparalleled in 
history. If by so preparing peace could be 
secured, a veritable millennium would have 
dawned. But instead, the world is plunged in 
war, all the more disastrous because the prepara- 
tions for it have been so adequate. Thus the 
fallacy is exposed; that false opinion, zealously 
propagated by militarists, who loving war have 
not had the courage of their affection, and have 
been driven to hypocrisy, has been for ever 
dissipated. Nothing is more certain than that 
peace will not be preserved by an increase of 
armaments. Rather such an increase makes 
for war. Those who have been burdened for 
years with the cost of paying for military pre- 
parations, those who have been forced to interrupt 
their ordinary lives to undergo military training, 
tend almost to desire war ; at least, its occurrence 
would serve to show that money and time had 
not been expended in vain. The worst calamity 
is hardly so terrible as constant anticipation 
of calamity; nations, constantly alarmed by 
rumours of war, constantly preparing against 
some half -unrealised evil, become inclined to 



MILITARISM 137 

find the actual outbreak of hostilities a relief. 
The peoples of the continent offered no opposition 
to the policy of their rulers; everywhere the war 
has met with support from the masses, even 
though the character and extent of that support 
have varied greatly in different countries. 

In fact, the militarists have accomplished that 
which was their true intention. Peace was on 
their lips ; war was in their hearts. Their desire 
was not to prevent conflict but to ensure victory. 
This much again has been made clear by the 
present war, the true character of the Prussian 
military caste has been revealed. The slightest 
pressure from Berlin would have induced the 
court of Vienna to soften its note to Serbia; 
the Dual Monarchy has long been little more than 
an appanage of the German Empire. Signs of a 
sincere desire for peace on the part of the German 
government would have strengthened the hands 
of England and France, Russia would have been 
persuaded to abandon her mobilisation, and a 
conference of ambassadors would have replaced 
the clash of armies. 

But the Prussian militarists, fearing for their 
continued ascendancy, believed that they had 
found a suitable opportunity for securing it; 
the day for which they had prepared seemed to 



138 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

have dawned. The murder of Francis Ferdinand 
afforded a plausible excuse for vigorous action. 
England was supposed to be controlled by a 
peace-at-any-price ministry, to be threatened 
by civil war in Ireland, by mutiny in India, and 
by troubles in Egypt. France was held to be 
unready; her troops to be worse equipped than 
on the eve of Sedan. To crush France and 
to humiliate Russia seemed to be no difficult 
task; the fiction of Slav barbarism and Teutonic 
culture would serve to rally the German people 
round their masters. Victory would check the 
dangerous agitation in favour of political liberty; 
the yoke of Prussian militarism would be riveted 
still more firmly upon the neck of a long-suffering 
race. In all, there was no desire for peace; the 
militarists were ready for war, they entered upon 
war because thereby their own interest would 
be served. They did not prepare for war, because 
they desired peace ; they spoke of peace, because 
they desired war. 

A further fallacy has also been exposed by the 
war. The intervention of England on behalf of 
Belgium, coupled with her refusal to conclude a 
possibly advantageous bargain with Germany, 
has thrown a new light upon the character of 
international relations. It has become clear 



MILITARISM 139 

that there is at least one nation which is not 
wholly absorbed in the pursuit of self-interest, 
and since it is improbable that England possesses 
a monopoly of political virtue, hope arises that 
other nations will also obey the dictates of honour. 
Nor is it a sufficient answer that the interest 
of England demanded that she should defend 
Belgium, that the possession of Antwerp by 
Germany would threaten her. Germany was 
certainly eager to avoid immediate conflict with 
England. If England had been so inclined, she 
could have secured that the Belgians permitted 
Germany to advance through their eastern 
provinces and the territorial integrity of the 
country would have been secured. But such 
conduct would have involved both a breach of 
faith and a repudiation of treaties ; England was 
not prepared to sanction a violation of obligations. 
And the belief that the cynical view of inter- 
national morality is unfounded on fact is strength- 
ened by the professions of the allies. They have 
declared themselves to be the champions of the 
weak and the exponents of the principle of 
equality. There is in fact an altruism in their 
action which disposes of the theory that all 
nations are necessarily immoral. They may act 
from higher motives than self-interest ; friendship 



140 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

becomes a possibility, treaties may be of some 
avail, nations are not in a relationship where 
there is no law save force. 

The foundations of the militarist theory are 
thus shaken if not destroyed; the prevalent 
system is not justified either on the ground that 
by it peace may be preserved or on the ground that 
necessity compels its maintenance. And it has 
not even served to produce a perfect war-machine. 
The conscript armies are indubitably efficient; 
they are ready to endure much, they possess the 
virtues of discipline and obedience. But in the 
very nature of things they are imperfect. Com- 
posed of men whose ordinary avocations are 
peaceful, they lack that enthusiasm which is born 
of pursuit of a chosen employment; they enter 
upon war from necessity, real or supposed, not 
from choice. They will fight steadily; discipline 
up to a certain point replaces enthusiasm. But 
they are prone to surrender easily, they have 
often to be driven into battle, they are ready to 
desert. All these facts are recognised even by 
the advocates of conscription ; the very formation 
of an officers' corps as a class apart is the outcome 
of the need for professional leaders, whose sole 
interest is military. No one has denied that a 
voluntary army is more efficient and effective 



MILITARISM 141 

than one based upon compulsion; only need of 
numbers greater than could be secured by enlist- 
ment and the fear that too great a professional 
army would hamper all production have caused 
the adoption of coercive methods. It has been 
believed that by weight of numbers alone can 
victory be secured. But the present war has 
already to a certain extent discredited the con- 
scripts. The small, but voluntary, English army 
proved itself superior man for man to the con- 
scripts; its successful retirement from Mons 
suggested that numbers are not so important a 
factor in war as has been imagined ; belief in their 
absolute power has been shaken. Circumstances 
combine to destroy the existing militarist system; 
the arguments upon which it has been based have 
been shown to be at least faulty. 

And this fact, taken in conjunction with the 
political and moral results of the war, will strike 
the death-blow at militarism. The recognition 
of nationalism and the abandonment of a coercive 
regime will remove one of the most potent causes 
of conflict; armies will be less necessary since 
they will not be required for the maintenance of 
internal peace. The maintaining of that peace 
has been often one great cause of the existence 
of a standing army. If it had not been necessary 



142 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

to guard against a possible rising in India, England 
would have been able to dispense with a large 
part of her military establishment; the recogni- 
tion of racial equality in India and the grant of 
self-government will remove this cause. And 
on the continent also the need for armies will be 
reduced. By military power alone Russia has 
preserved her possession of Poland and Finland, 
Germany has held down Poles and Danes, Austria 
has checked the tendency to disruption in her 
dominions. The recognition of the rights of 
nationalities will remove the need for such coercion 
and hence for the means of coercion. 

It may be admitted that the ruling classes may 
not readily assent to the discarding of the existing 
military system. Conscript armies serve their 
purpose; habits of submission are inculcated and 
the political sense of the people is deadened. The 
officers' corps in most European states has been 
carefully recruited from a particular class, and 
that class has also directed the policy of the state 
in reality, even though, as in Germany, the actual 
ministers have been selected from a different 
section of society. Their domination has been 
the more readily accepted because a military life 
has served to check mental development. Soldiers 
are notoriously slow of comprehension in politics ; 



MILITARISM 143 

many have entered political life after a successful 
career in the camp, few have attained even 
moderate success. Habituated to command, they 
forget the arts of persuasion; they become either 
impatient or incapable of argument. The men 
have less political sense than their officers. 
Used to obey, they forget that men are free; 
accustomed to salute, they forget that men are 
equal. They are ready to admit that a particu- 
lar class has some inherent right to rule; they 
are the natural supporters of aristocratic and 
monarchical government. They are easily in- 
duced to accept the ideas and to obey the orders 
of a ruling class, and it is probable enough that 
the close of the present war will see some attempt 
on the part of those ruling classes to preserve 
their power by deceiving the people into believing 
that conscription, or at least universal military 
service, is essential to national salvation. In 
England, indeed, there have been already signs 
that such an attempt will be made; it has been 
tentatively suggested that the existence of a 
large army would have prevented the outbreak of 
war. The corollary to this argument is easy to 
foresee; it will be asserted that to prevent a new 
war a large standing army must be created or 
maintained ; the fallacy Si vis pacem, para helium 



144 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

will be the watchword of the ruling class in its 
last struggle to prevent the triumph of democracy. 

But the fallacy of that maxim has already 
become apparent, the deception of the many has 
become more difficult, and with the many lies 
the decision whether militarism shall live or die. 
The war will compel the extension of popular 
government even to those lands where it has been 
least known. Monarchy has ever been a factor 
making for war ; the dominion of a ruling class has 
ever been hostile to long continued peace. A time 
of war makes control more necessary and hence 
engenders a spirit of submission, unless indeed it 
produces revolt; a ruling class has thus generally 
profited from war. And that class has been the 
more ready to disturb peace since upon it the 
miseries of war fall most lightly. The poor suffer, 
the rich enjoy the benefit. The evils of scarcity 
of food or employment press most upon those 
who have no reserve of capital, upon artisans 
and upon the professional classes. They may 
embarrass but they do not seriously injure the 
wealthy; great landowners often suffer not at 
all, great manufacturers often profit. A ruhng 
class will rarely be enthusiastic for peace. 

But the misery of this war will be brought 
home to the many. They may rule if they will, 



MILITARISM 14S 

and that they will resolve to rule, to take away 
the possibility of another war, is certain enough. 
It is, indeed, inconceivable that the people in any 
state will any longer consent to be burdened by 
the weight of armaments, that they will be willing 
to renew again that exhausting race of ship- 
building and regiment raising which has marked 
the last generation. And mere resolve to prevent 
the continued growth of armaments, organised 
resolve by the masses in each country, would be 
enough to secure the defeat of militarism. 

But the final destruction of militarism will 
come from the changed nature of mankind. 
Even while racial jealousy has been bitter and 
intolerance rife, militarism has never been popular. 
At times, perhaps, the glamour of a successful 
war has beguiled the many and blinded them to 
the misery; France was so beguiled in the age of 
Louis XIV. and in the age of Napoleon. But 
the glamour has soon faded. Napoleon, genius 
though he was, national hero as he became, 
found that his popularity was waning before 
Leipsic ; he was driven to inaugurate the Hundred 
Days by the Acte Additionel, a concession to that 
liberty which he had before been able to destroy 
as a result of his triumphs on the battlefields of 
Europe. England's one experience of a military 



146 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

despotism, under Cromwell, delayed the creation 
of a real standing army for a century or more; 
even to-day, the Army Act is an annual measure, 
and no principle is more emphatically asserted 
than that to maintain a standing army without 
consent of parliament is illegal. 

Dislike of militarism, hatred of war, will be 
increased by the present conflict. Every war 
of modern times has made less appeal to the 
imagination; there has been less to excite the 
enthusiasm of the many. A khaki-clad army, 
with uniforms dust-stained and torn, compares 
unfavourably from the spectacular point of view 
with the brilliant soldiery of a bygone age. Weeks 
of drawn-out fighting, the result of which is long 
in doubt, have nothing of that dramatic character 
which marked the battles in which and during a 
single day the fate of empires might be decided. 
War has been shorn of much or all of its former 
glamour ; its misery remains and has been intensi- 
fied. Hence active popular assent to war, never 
easy to secure and now infinitely more essential, 
will be harder than ever to obtain. The change of 
human nature will render it impossible to obtain 
at all; the deepening of human sympathy and the 
growth of toleration will serve to persuade mankind 
that war is an unnecessary evil. The armed camp 



MILITARISM 147 

will pass away; militarism will cease, and though 
armies may continue to exist, the maintenance 
of vast forces will become an impossibility. 
Even the desire of a ruling class to rule will 
eventually be extinguished, and by degrees the 
world will learn that there is a more excellent way, 
that by mutual toleration and concession all just 
desires can be satisfied. This war will kill 
militarism, and will thereby also end war. 



VIII 

ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 

The evils of war can hardly be exaggerated, but 
those which result from economic strife are almost 
more appalling. A great war serves at least to 
supply the necessities of life to numbers of soldiers. 
The death by which they are constantly threatened 
ever bears with it the compensation of glory. 
Certain industries flourish as vigorously or more 
vigorously in time of war than in time of peace; 
regular employment is assured those who prepare 
the requisites for armies in the field. And since 
war can only be the outcome of action by a govern- 
ment, all the authority and power of the state 
are directed to minimise as far as possible the 
resultant distress. 

On the other hand, a strike causes widespread 
suffering, while the palliating circumstances do 
not exist. The brunt of the day is borne rather 
by women and children than by men; the agony 
has often to be endured in silence and in solitude. 

Death comes hardly less certainly, though it 
148 



ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 149 

comes far more slowly and far less gloriously. 
No monuments are raised to those who have 
fallen in the cause of industrial liberty; by a large 
section of their fellows they are hailed rather as 
villains than as heroes. The state recognises no 
explicit obligation to cope with misery resulting 
from action for which it confesses no responsi- 
bility. And if ever there were a general strike, 
the evils which would follow would be far more 
extensive than those which follow upon a general 
war. Production of all kinds would cease. The 
destruction of capital would be so vast that the 
economic energy even of the richest state would 
be crippled for years to come, and the more so 
since those trade booms which generally occur 
at the conclusion of a war do not occur at the 
conclusion of some great industrial conflict. 

At the present day, strife is the rule rather than 
the exception in the economic world. Employers 
and employees regard one another with as much 
jealousy and distrust as do nations; the prevail- 
ing industrial condition is one of open or concealed 
war. So permanent and inevitable has the con- 
flict between capital and labour appeared to be, 
that men have despaired of finding means for 
ending it even in a complete upheaval of society. 
Suggested solutions have either proved to be 



ISO THE NATIONS AT WAR 

unworkable owing to the imperfections of human 
nature, or have opened up vistas of evils far 
greater than those which they have been intended 
to remove. 

Such proposed remedies as co-operation and 
profit-sharing have been wrecked upon the rock 
of mutual distrust ; the former has suffered from 
lack of competent management, the latter from 
doubt as to the sincerity of the employers. The 
measure of success which has attended either 
scheme in a few isolated instances has served 
to emphasise their general inapplicability. Nor 
does either socialism or syndicalism appear to 
point the way out of the existing difficulty. The 
former would concentrate all economic power 
in the hands of the state. But the state can 
act only through human agency; extensive or 
absolute authority would have to be entrusted 
to a body of men, and for their honesty and 
sincerity there could be no possible guarantee. 
It is only too probable that a tyrannous official- 
dom would be produced, beside which even the 
Prussian system would appear liberal and free. 
Revolt would be certain; conflict would be 
speedily renewed. 

The syndicalists aim rather at the destruction 
of the employer class than at the establishment 



ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 151 

of harmony and peace. Every branch of indus- 
try would be independently organised under the 
direction of the workers in that industry; a 
condition of affairs not dissimilar from that which 
prevailed in the days of the craft gilds would be 
produced, and it is probable that identical results 
would follow. Each organised trade would tend 
to become more and more exclusive ; the practical 
abandonment of the conception of the solidarity 
of labour would intensify the already existing 
hostility between workers whose interests natur- 
ally clash. Strife would not cease; it would 
rather become the very basis of economic life, and 
men would in all probability revert in disgust to 
the unhappy conditions of the past. 

Yet, though in all these proposals there is little 
ground for hope, it cannot be that there is in very 
truth no solution. It would be almost a small 
matter that war should cease, if economic strife 
is to continue. The world can never become 
happy, mankind can never attain to true peace, 
unless the secular conflict between capital and 
labour ends. It is unreasonable to suppose that 
the human race is never destined to make progress, 
that it is doomed to proceed for ever from one 
misfortune to another. There must be some 
solution for the economic difficulty, no less than 



152 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

for those political difficulties which have in the 
past distracted the world. 

There is such a solution, and its character is 
revealed by consideration of the false remedies 
which have been suggested. In all proposals 
that have been made there is one vitiating factor, 
the assumption that there is a necessary hostility 
between employer and employee, between capital 
and labour. It is obvious that such hostility is 
not the outcome of the operation of any economic 
law. Labour and capital are both essential for 
production; for production on any large scale, 
where many men are working together, some 
direction, some management, is also essential in 
order to prevent hopeless waste of time and 
material, of energy mental and physical, and 
the employer class was called into existence in 
obedience to the demands of the situation. The 
assumption that the existence of such a class must 
necessarily be prejudicial to the interests of the 
labourers is unjustified. 

It may be admitted that the aim of the em- 
ployer is to increase his profits, of the employee 
to increase his wages ; that wages of labour is an 
element in cost of production, and that, at first 
sight, any increase in wages must result in a 
decrease of profits. But not only is it true that 



ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 153 

profits depend rather upon the cost of selling than 
upon the cost of producing, but it is also a well- 
established fact, and no mere economic theory, 
that high wages more often than not mean cheap 
labour. Men work with greater energy and 
sincerity when their reward is adequate; they 
have a powerful motive for desiring the continu- 
ance of their employment. The consequent 
increase in production, the saving of material 
effected, serve to recoup the employer for his 
increased wages bill; his profits are actually 
enhanced. The history of the slave states 
illustrates the fact that high wages often make 
high profits. Those masters who in effect paid 
wages by displaying kindness and consideration, 
who thereby practically introduced a new factor 
into cost of production, made higher profits than 
did those who endeavoured to eliminate that 
factor by withholding such gifts. 

Nor need the labourer regard the larger profits 
of the employer as inflicting so much loss or 
injustice upon himself. There must be some 
inducement to secure the expenditure of capital 
and skill in the work of production. If profits 
were reduced to a minimum, production would 
also be lessened ; the load of responsibility which 
rests upon any large employer of labour would 



1 54 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

be too great in proportion to the reward received. 
Men of marked capacity would turn their energy 
into other channels; the standard of management 
would decline. Production would thus become 
less economically wise; loss of capital owing to 
error would be more frequent. All those disasters 
which have wrecked co-operative schemes would 
occur; the labourer would share in the resultant 
economic distress, and his chance of employment 
would be reduced. 

But though few will be found who would deny 
the truth of these assertions, yet it cannot be 
expected that in the present state of society 
their truth will avail to end industrial strife. 
Men are moved by passion and prejudice; argu- 
ments drawn from an abstract and scientific 
consideration of economic conditions are wasted 
when human feelings are deeply stirred. It is 
idle to insist with a man, convinced that he is 
being ground beneath the heel of an unjust 
employer, upon the interdependence of capital 
and labour. It is idle to suggest to an employer, 
who has lost a favourable contract owing to the 
occurrence of a strike for higher wages, that 
high wages make high profits. In their cooler 
moments, employee and employer alike may be 
prepared to admit the force of such arguments. 



ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 155 

They will admit nothing of the kind when their 
blood has been heated to boiling point by some 
real or imagined wrong. While human nature 
remains as it is, not all the professors of political 
economy in the world can convince men that 
the interests of each party in the industrial 
conflict are identical. Strife will continue, to 
the detriment of both employer and em- 
ployee. 

There is, in short, no hope of solution save in 
the development of a spirit of toleration. Em- 
ployer and employee must be ready to regard all 
questions from the other's point of view; there 
must be real sympathy between the two parties. 
At present, though there are numbers of good 
employers and numbers of honest employees, 
such sympathy does not exist. It is an unfortun- 
ate fact that even those who care for their work- 
people, who provide them with recreation grounds 
and model dwellings, who contribute no small 
portion of their profits to the bettering of the 
condition of their employees, do all this from a 
position of fancied superiority. They feel that 
they are doing more than they need ; they glow 
with a sense of conscious virtue. They demand 
a tribute of gratitude from their men; they not 
infrequently attempt to acquire a reputation for 



156 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

philanthropy that so they may advance their 
political or social interests. 

Nor are the employees less blameworthy. 
Those who do their work honestly are as yet the 
exceptions. They assume credit for doing that 
which it is their duty to do ; they expect far more 
recognition than is compelled under the terms of 
the contract into which they have entered. They 
interpret the golden rule to mean that they will 
so behave towards others as to force those others 
to do that which they wish them to do. 

In fact, the present assumption upon which 
economic society is based is that all employees 
will shirk and malinger, if possible, that all em- 
ployers will grind the faces of the poor, so far as 
they can do so without risking a conflict with 
some inconvenient trade union. And this assump- 
tion is nothing more than the assumption that the 
two classes are natural enemies; it is based upon 
the fact that there is a complete lack of sympathy 
between the two classes. They are men, and they 
are subject to the infirmities of human nature; 
they are filled with that intolerance which is the 
common characteristic of mankind. Were they 
tolerant, were they ready to regard the other's 
point of view, they would realise that it is no less 
to the interest of the employee to be honest in 



ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 157 

his labour than of the employer to care for the 
welfare of his employees. Self-interest would 
serve to move them to the exercise of due con- 
sideration for each other, since the employee and 
the employer alike benefit from increased produc- 
tion, from the absence of industrial strife and 
from the contentment produced by the reception 
of adequate wages. If these facts were realised, 
a great step would have been taken towards the 
solution of the economic difficulty. 

But they cannot be realised so long as intoler- 
ance is the rule, tolerance the exception, so long 
as human nature remains what it is. Until that 
nature has been in some way modified, until in- 
dustrial relations are based upon love rather than 
upon hate, upon mutual confidence rather than 
upon mutual jealousy, economic strife will con- 
tinue. And there appears, at first sight, little 
prospect of so beneficial a change in the condi- 
tions of the world. Recent years have been 
characterised by frequent and violent industrial 
disputes. Strike has followed strike ; all attempts 
at compromise and agreement have seemed to be 
futile, and on the very eve of the present war the 
economic condition of the country was one of 
already profound disturbance with the prospect 
of even greater disturbance in the near future. 



158 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

At no time has there appeared to be less sym- 
pathy between the two classes; at no time have 
hatred and jealousy seemed to be so intense. 

Even, however, in the very disturbances which 
have occurred, there has been ground for hope, 
ground for believing that a change is coming 
over the industrial world, that out of the very 
exaggeration of conflict harmony might come. 
Time after time, trade union leaders have urged 
their men to avoid conflict, have counselled 
moderation. It is no easy matter for a labour 
leader to tell dissatisfied workers that their atti- 
tude is unreasonable, that their demands are 
unjust. Suspicion tends almost inevitably to fall 
upon him in such a case; he will be readily 
accused of treason to the common cause. Those 
leaders who have gone against their men have 
possessed no ordinary courage and sincerity, 
have been inspired by no ordinary devotion to 
duty. They have abandoned the easy road to 
popularity, the path of vigorous denunciation of 
the employing class, of eager support of the em- 
ployees, right or wrong; they have chosen the 
difficult road of sincerity and truth. That trade 
union leadership should have come into the 
hands of such men augurs well for the future. 
Their influence, directed to make the voice of 



ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 159 

reason heard above the storms of passion, can 
only make for a greater willingness on the part 
of the employees to understand their employers. 
And the influence of these leaders will eventually 
prevail; though individuals will perhaps suffer, 
the cause which they have championed will 
triumph, for in cooler moments their counsels 
will be remembered, and experience of distress 
suffered from disregard of those counsels will 
point their wisdom. 

Even the very violence of labour agitation, 
which leads to disregard of the advice of the 
leaders, tends ultimately to make for peace. 
The survival of feudal ideas has been responsible 
in no small measure for the faults of employers. 
There has been a conviction that the masses were 
created and exist that the few may thereby 
benefit; the demands of the labourers have been 
treated almost as an attempt to change a divinely 
instituted order. Ready concession by an em- 
ployer to those demands was almost held to 
declass him, sympathy with them to be treason 
to a supposed aristocracy. It was held to be 
essential that every effort should be made to pro- 
pagate and to maintain that perversion of the 
Church Catechism which urges men to do their 
duty contentedly in that state of life in which it 



160 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

has pleased God to place them, to refrain, that 
is, from any effort to raise themselves from that 
position in which they have the misfortune to be 
born. For many years, the survival of feudal 
ideas, and the consequent lack of organisation of 
labour, led even those who suffered to accept the 
creed which was preached to them. Sweating 
was easy, for those who were sweated inclined to 
believe that it was their Christian duty to be 
patient under oppression. The masses half be- 
lieved that God had conferred upon a particular 
class a prescriptive right to the good things of 
this world, that it was part of the immutable 
purpose of Heaven that the majority of mankind 
should pass through life touching their caps and 
curtseying to the minority. 

But year after year this feudal spirit has de- 
clined in strength. Belief in the divine right of 
those who have to exploit those who have not 
has almost disappeared; even the stolid agri- 
cultural labourers of southern England have 
begun to doubt the inspiration of their former 
teachers. The indignity of subservience has 
been increasingly appreciated; patronage has 
been more and more resented. The theory of 
the divine character of kingship died with Queen 
Anne; the theory of the divine origin of aristo- 



ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 161 

cratic privilege, rendered ludicrous by the char- 
acter of the alleged English aristocracy of to-day, 
is now well-nigh dead. Neither theory has ever 
secured the assent of rational men, save in the 
case of those whose interest impelled them to a 
convenient self-deception. To-day, its absurdity 
hardly requires demonstration, unless, indeed, 
to the Emperor William II. and his associates. 
The democracy has been enlightened and aroused, 
and, being roused, has resolved to end for ever 
the tyranny of those who have so long attempted 
to monopolise the good things of this world. 

But in all this the employing class may well 
find food for thought. Whether they will or no, 
they are driven to consider means by which 
constant strikes may be avoided. Self-interest 
forces them to examine the case of the employee, 
to seek for some remedy for such continued un- 
rest. And to this there can be but one result. 
Neither the employer nor the employee possesses 
any monopoly of virtue. For every case of 
heartless exploitation by the one class, there are 
probably a dozen cases of malingering, laziness 
and drunkenness in the other. But neither has 
either class a monopoly of vice. And when one 
of the two classes strives to appreciate the other's 
point of view, a better understanding, a deeper 



i6z THE NATIONS AT WAR 

sympathy can only result. Each will perceive 
that the other has cause for complaint. The 
labour leaders have already realised that justice 
is not always on the side of the workers; the 
masters will soon realise that justice is not always 
on the side of the employers. Though industrial 
strife has increased in recent years, the tendency 
is towards its cessation. It is as the darkness, 
always greatest when the dawn is at hand. The 
way to peace may be stormy, the means by which 
it will be attained violent often and crude, but 
the path which mankind is following leads 
assuredly to that haven of rest where the race 
would be. 

Attainment of that haven will be rendered 
more speedy, less difficult, by all that serves to 
increase the sympathy of mankind, by all that 
serves to bring men to a deeper consciousness of 
their common humanity. And hence the present 
war will produce economic, no less than political, 
peace. Common service will bring classes nearer 
to each other; a great crisis will force them to 
remember that they are all English, to forget that 
some employ and others are employed. The 
battlefields of Europe will be the grave of many 
men; they will be the grave also of industrial 
disputes. Common sorrow will complete the 



ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 163 

work begun by common service. Sympathy is 
deepened by experience of distress, mental or 
physical. Such distress will be the lot of all 
classes before the present war is ended, and it 
will be endured to good purpose since thereby 
the greatest evils which have oppressed the race 
will be removed. 

It would be insane optimism to expect that 
economic strife will end in a day. Long-seated 
prejudice does not die easily; deep-rooted con- 
victions persist even when their error has been 
most amply demonstrated. But eventually that 
which political economists have so long preached 
in vain will be believed. A better understanding 
between employers and employed will be created. 
The fiction that their relations must necessarily 
be based upon hostility will go the way of the 
fiction that upon the same basis all international 
relations must rest. 

Nor will the war affect only the industrial con- 
dition of Great Britain. Its economic, no less 
than its political, effects will be felt in all lands, 
even in those states which remain neutral. They 
will be felt in international, no less than in in- 
ternal, trade. Hitherto, the economic relations 
of state with state have been determined very 
largely by the political maxim that all states are 



164. THE NATIONS AT WAR 

potential enemies of one another. It has been 
believed that national power can only be main- 
tained at the expense of other nations, that the 
prosperity of one is the adversity of another. A 
protective system has been adopted largely in 
obedience to this theory, as a measure of mere 
self-defence. The faults of that system have 
been frequently demonstrated; even the pro- 
tectionists themselves have declared that in an 
ideal state of society universal free trade would 
obtain. The way will now be open for the realisa- 
tion of this ideal. The danger of war being re- 
moved, the path will be clear for the evolution of 
friendly economic relations. Mankind, its sym- 
pathy deepened, its toleration increased, will re- 
cognise its solidarity. It will appreciate that the 
prosperity of one state does not mean the adver- 
sity of another. The political argument in 
favour of protection will be destroyed, and the 
economic arguments against such a system will 
have full weight. A regime of free trade will be 
established. 

And as this will be in part the result of the re- 
moval of danger of war, of the abandonment of 
the armed camp and of the pursuit of peace by 
the human race, so the new economic system will 
itself make for the maintenance of peace. Among 



ECONOMIC CONDITIONS 165 

the causes of war, economic rivalry has been one 
of the most fruitful. Indeed, there has never 
been a war, from the time of the prehistoric 
migrations to the present day, which has not 
had in it an economic element. But that element 
has been present because the theory of hostility 
has prevailed. With the destruction of that 
theory the cause of strife will be removed, and with 
the removal of the economic cause of war peace 
will be the better secured. Not only will a new 
era dawn, its continuance will be assured. The 
present war will end economic conflict no less 
certainly than it will end the conflict of armies. 



IX 

ATHLETICISM 

One of the most remarkable features of the last 
hundred years in England has been the con- 
stantly increasing attention which has been 
devoted to athletics of all kinds. Though it is 
alleged that Wellington attributed the victory of 
Waterloo to the beneficent influence of the play- 
ing fields of Eton, yet at that date sport, in its 
modern sense, was almost unknown. Horse- 
racing, indeed, was general, but even such classic 
events as the Cesarewitch and Cambridgeshire 
had still to be founded. In steeplechasing, the 
Grand National was unknown. It was not until 
fourteen years after Waterloo that the first uni- 
versity boat race was rowed ; another generation 
elapsed before it became a strictly annual event. 
The Marylebone Club dates back to Napoleonic 
times, but the county cricket championship began 
within living memory, and the Australians had 
still to pay their first visit when the Franco- 
German War was fought. Golf championships 

were unknown little more than fifty years ago; 
166 



ATHLETICISM 167 

south of the Tweed, golf courses were almost non- 
existent. The Rugby Union was founded in the 
same year as the modern German Empire; the 
Football Association is only slightly older. A 
comparison of the amount of space devoted to 
sport in the ordinary daily press on the eve of 
the present war with the amount similarly de- 
voted a generation ago will serve to emphasise 
the development of athleticism in the interval. 

That development has sometimes been re- 
garded as proof of national decadence. Abusive 
epithets have been hurled at those who play 
cricket and football; it has not been uncommon 
to point to the superior merit of the German race, 
which is alleged to devote to the art of war, or to 
the prosecution of cottage industries, the time 
that the Englishman expends in the playing of 
idle games. Yet it is certainly true that de- 
votion to sport does not in itself prove decadence. 
Those who have spread the fame of England 
through the world, who have done most to build 
up the empire, have not been generally hostile 
to athletics. If the more prominent statesmen 
have not generally been distinguished for athletic 
ability, this may possibly be attributed to 
physical causes. The men of action have been 
also athletes. At the present moment, the naval 



168 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

and military forces of Great Britain contain 
many a man who has already achieved fame at 
Lord's or Queen's Club, at Inverleith or Phoenix 
Park. In the casualty lists, the names of men 
distinguished in some form of athletics have 
frequently appeared; ability to play cricket, 
football, golf, does not necessarily incapacitate 
a man from serving and dying for his country. 

None the less the complaint that devotion to 
sport has been carried to an excess is not wholly 
unjustified. Any one who has read the columns 
of certain papers, even of papers possessing a 
reputation for sobriety, must have wondered at 
human capacity for the exaggeration of trifles. 
A foreign victory at Henley or in the Olympic 
Games has been hailed as a national disaster. 
It might be supposed that the fate of the empire 
depended upon the result of a test match, that 
association football was the serious business of 
life. The appearance of the crowd at any impor- 
tant match suggests the reflection that men might 
spend their time better than in watching others 
play games. 

Sport has, indeed, been very largely commer- 
cialised to the detriment of its power for good. 
County cricket has become a business rather than 
a game ; the number of sixpences received at the 



ATHLETICISM 169 

turnstiles seems to be often the most vital con- 
sideration, the press devotes more attention to 
the number of spectators present than to the finer 
points of play. Sport for sport's sake has become 
rarer. Association football clubs have attained a 
close resemblance to theatrical companies; their 
directors are concerned mainly with securing ade- 
quate dividends. Men have tended to devote to 
athletics time and attention which can ill be 
spared from more serious matters. The spectacu- 
lar side of games has been exaggerated, and the 
nation, as a whole, tends rather to watch than to 
play, to applaud and to bet rather than to take 
exercise. In all this there is reasonable ground 
for complaint, for wonder whether the modern 
devotion to sport does not actually constitute 
a national danger. 

Because it has been regarded as a danger, some 
have almost welcomed the present war. They 
have hoped that it will act as a species of moral 
tonic, that men, brought face to face with a great 
crisis, will in future view all things in a juster 
proportion. War news has already filled that 
space which was previously devoted to sport; 
football editions have been replaced by war 
specials; the cry "All the winners" is hardly 
heard. Men have something more serious and 



170 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

more enthralling to consider than the result of 
a race or a cup-tie. For moral and economic 
reasons the absolute cessation of sport has been 
avoided, but the present football season, both in 
point of the number of matches played and of the 
degree of interest aroused, will bear a very faint 
resemblance to the seasons of past years. 

But though, for the moment, sport is naturally 
dislocated by the war, it is perhaps doubtful 
whether the change will be permanent, whether 
at the restoration of peace things will not resume 
their normal course. Some, indeed, hope and 
expect that they will not do so. For years a 
certain section has advocated universal military 
service. They have recognised that devotion 
to athletics serves to prevent the acceptance of 
their proposals, and though they have generally 
attacked rather the spectators than the actual 
players, they have not regarded the latter with 
any very friendly eye. They have argued that 
men should learn first to drill and to shoot; 
afterwards, perhaps, and in their spare time, they 
might also play games. This party has been 
filled with a great hope by the present war. 
Gladdened by the sight of thousands hastening 
to join the army, they have given rein to their 
optimism. They have been moved to believe 



ATHLETICISM 171 

that the change, now apparent, will be permanent, 
that the supposed period of decadence is ended, 
that the nation will no longer trifle with its destiny. 
They almost expect that military training will 
remain general, that Saturday afternoons will 
be spent at rifle ranges or on parade grounds 
instead of in some sixpenny ring around a football 
ground. They trust that the heroes of the people 
will no longer be mere players of games, but 
exponents of the art of war. Militarism will take 
the place which sport has so long usurped. 

Fortunately for the welfare of mankind, such 
hopes will be falsified, and the war will have 
exactly the contrary effect from that which the 
militarists desire. At the moment the country 
is passing through a crisis of unparalleled gravity ; 
the people are therefore ready to undergo military 
training, as they are ready to make any and every 
sacrifice which their country demands. It is 
more than probable that conscription could have 
been introduced without arousing any serious 
opposition, and the government deserve the 
gratitude not only of this, but of every other, 
nation for having refrained from the adoption 
of so obvious an expedient. But to suppose that 
the readiness to practise the use of arms will 
continue when peace has been restored is to 



172 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

misunderstand both the spirit of the English race 
and the whole purpose of the present war. 

That war is being fought to crush Prussian 
militarism, by which the peace of Europe has been 
disturbed and the liberty of mankind endangered. 
Englishmen have always been anti - militarist ; 
the army has generally been regarded as a pos- 
sible source of danger, and has been the subject 
rather of suspicion and dislike than of pride or 
affection. To this acute political sense the 
nation owes its freedom and its greatness. A 
standing army has always been a factor making 
for despotism; to the lack of such an army the 
defeat of the Stuarts may be largely attributed. 
The peaceful conversion of England into a veiled 
republic would hardly have been possible if the 
Hanoverians had possessed a strong military 
force. The organisation of the empire upon the 
basis of free assent would have been impossible 
if England had been controlled by a military 
caste. And it is because they are anti-militarist 
that Englishmen have enlisted so readily for 
service in the present war. Prussian militarism 
will be destroyed ; no regime of British militarism 
will be established upon its ruins. Neither con- 
scription, nor any equivalent system of compul- 
sory military training, will be introduced; the 



ATHLETICISM 173 

object lesson afforded by the effect of militarism 
upon Germany will prove more effective than 
reams of argument . Englishmen will not abandon 
their football grounds or their golf links for rifle 
ranges; the violation of Belgian neutrality 
supplies the best possible answer to those who 
have advocated the idea of " the nation in arms," 
and nothing is more certain than that the victory 
of the allies in a war against militarism will kill 
militarism for ever. 

Sport, however, will not be unaffected; the 
influence of the present crisis will extend to all 
sides of life. As men have been moved to think 
more seriously, so they will in the future be less 
extravagant. An athletic defeat will no longer 
be magnified into a national calamity; there will 
be less attention to championships and to aver- 
ages or records; there will be less idolisation 
of prominent athletes. Sport will become less 
spectacular; less money will be expended on it, 
if only because there will be less money to be 
spent when the attendances at matches have 
declined. 

But sport will not suffer a decline. Its charac- 
ter will be modified, and perhaps modified for the 
better, but there will be rather an increase than a 
decrease in the number of athletes. That this 



174 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

must be a result of the war will be clear if the 
circumstances of the present conflict are con- 
sidered. Service in the field will develop the 
physical energy of the race ; the military training 
of those who do not actually enter upon active 
service will have the same effect. This energy 
must necessarily find some outlet. Such an 
outlet would possibly be afforded by compulsory 
service, but hatred for militarism will be intensi- 
fied by the war, and having endured all things 
that a military regime might be destroyed, the 
nation will not be brought to consent to the 
creation of such a regime in England. Hence the 
exuberant physical energy of the race can find 
expression only in athletics ; the number of players 
will increase, though that of the spectators will 
diminish. 

The same result will be the indirect outcome of 
that growth of toleration which will be the prin- 
cipal result of the present war. That spirit is 
hostile to extravagance of all kinds; it consists 
very largely in placing all things in their due 
relationship. The difference between toleration 
and intolerance is little more than the difference 
between the consideration of trifles and the con- 
sideration of broad issues; the man who is 
intolerant insists upon the petty peculiarities 



ATHLETICISM 175 

and faults of his neighbours, the man who is 
tolerant regards the fundamental points in their 
character. But any one who takes broad views 
is bound to recognise that sport is not a matter 
of vital importance, that the result of a race or 
of a game need not seriously disturb the equa- 
nimity of mankind. He will realise, indeed, the 
value of athletics; he will not assign to athletics 
a place in the scheme of things to which they are 
not legitimately entitled. The passion for sport 
will be restrained; attendances will decline and 
expenditure will decline also . Those who formerly 
watched will now tend to play. There will be an 
increase in all branches of sport, but it will be an 
increase of athleticism. The very result which 
many have desired will be secured ; there will be 
a certain reversion to the conditions of an earlier 
period. Sport will regain something of the 
character which it possessed a generation ago; 
it will become less commercial and more athletic. 
And such a revival of real athleticism will serve 
to assist the general progress of the race. Acting 
as a physical safety-valve, it will confirm the 
defeat of militarism. Being highly democratic 
in its nature, it will serve to break down the 
barriers between class and class, since capacity 
in a particular form of sport will be more regarded 



176 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

than supposed social standing by those who are 
playing games together. That modification of 
human nature which will be the result of the 
present war will be not a little aided by that 
change in the character of English sport which 
it will have originally contributed to produce. 



FEMINISM 

The present age has been marked by a growth 
of the desire for equality. The allies took up 
arms largely in obedience to that desire; they 
refused to admit the material or moral superiority 
of the German Empire. Subject races have 
displayed increasing dissatisfaction with their 
subordinate position ; in every land, the authority 
of a ruling class has been questioned with more 
and more insistence, and the masses have inclined 
to refuse submission even to the leaders whom 
they have themselves selected. The desire has 
extended to the relations of the sexes; the 
feminist movement is nothing more than an 
attempt to establish equality between men and 
women. It demands that the right to exercise 
the franchise should no longer depend in any 
sense upon sex; that all forms of employ- 
ment should be thrown open to women; that 
equality before the law should be actually 
established. 
As might have been expected, these demands 

177 M 



178 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

have been resisted. In the past, men have pos- 
sessed a certain prerogative; they have ruled 
and women have obeyed, even though feminine 
arts have often converted an apparent subjection 
into an absolute superiority. A ruling class 
rarely abdicates its position without a struggle. 
The history of England since Waterloo is little 
more than a record of the efforts of a dominant 
clique to preserve its dominion. The Prussian 
military caste has forced the German people into 
war rather than submit to some partition of its 
authority. Men have similarly opposed the 
feminist movement, and with the greater vigour 
because the advocates of women's rights have 
been guilty both of folly and of violence. In 
Scandinavia they have afforded plausible grounds 
for the charge that they desire not liberty but 
licence; that they are using the plea of sex- 
equality to secure freedom to gratify vicious 
desires. In England, the militant suffragists 
have alienated moderate opinion by wanton 
destruction of property; they have made many 
feel that any concession to them would be a 
concession to the forces of anarchy and subversive 
of the very foundations of political society. 

And opposition having been aroused and 
increased, some justification for it has been sought 



FEMINISM 179 

in nature. It has been argued that equality 
between the sexes is impossible; that it could be 
secured only through the medium of a physio- 
logical revolution; that until such a revolution 
occurs, men will remain men and women will 
remain women, each possessing advantages and 
suffering disadvantages inherent in their very 
nature. It is argued that the very difference 
between the sexes indicates that in the order of 
nature one is intended to rule; it is suggested 
that the good of each is to be found not in a revolt 
against, but in acceptance of, natural laws. 
Equality in other directions may be attained as 
a result of the general progress of the human 
race; sexual equality will never be attained. 
Women must continue to occupy a position 
somewhat subordinate, because that position has 
been assigned to them by nature. 

In such arguments and assertions there is an 
obvious element of justice. Literal and absolute 
equality is an impossibility; the physical diverg- 
ence between the sexes cannot be overcome. 
Certain types of employment must remain closed 
to men, certain to women. And the mentality 
of the sexes is also different; power of intuition 
is essentially a feminine gift, and women do not 
generally excel at close analysis or argument. 



180 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

Certain forms of intellectual employment must 
normally be confined to the male sex, as certain 
other forms will normally be confined to the 
feminine sex. Thus the teaching of very young 
children will perhaps always be better performed 
by women; the secondary education of boys be 
better entrusted to men. The first demands 
sympathy and rapid intuition; the latter may 
demand sympathy, but it demands also a certain 
measure of brutality. 

When, however, all this has been admitted, 
the argument is still somewhat unconvincing. 
It does, indeed, little more than juggle with the 
term " equality." It does not justify the denial 
of equality. It would be as reasonable to deny 
racial equality because all races have their own 
peculiar merits and demerits; to deny the rights 
of nationalities because the nationalist principle 
cannot be everywhere applied. It is almost as 
though a state were to justify the tyranny of a 
minority, because men are not born equal in 
brain-power, in virtue, in physical strength, or 
in any other material sense. The feminist cause 
is not really damaged in the least by the frankest 
possible admission that there is a profound 
divergence between the sexes, and that such 
divergence is necessarily permanent. 



FEMINISM 181 

It rather gains by such an admission, since it 
indicates a growth of toleration, and to intolerance 
the conflict of the sexes must be attributed. 
With the best will in the world, a man often 
finds it impossible to appreciate a woman's point 
of view, or a woman to appreciate a man's. In 
the past, and so far as the feminist movement is 
concerned, the sexes have displayed, perhaps, 
little desire to understand one another. But the 
growing wish for equality indicates also a growth 
of toleration, for the wish is not confined to those 
who have hitherto suffered from inequality, 
but extends also to those who have profited. 
The feminist demand is in effect a demand for 
toleration. It suffers, therefore, in reasonable- 
ness in so far as its advocates have been guilty 
of violence and of intolerance either in action or 
language; admission of the validity of certain 
objections to the granting of the demand is almost 
a victory for the feminist cause. Everything 
which makes for an increase of toleration makes 
also for the granting of the demand for sex- 
equality. 

The present war, accordingly, will tend to 
assist the feminist cause, though it will have the 
effect of modifying the character of the demands 
made. Already, the gravity of the present crisis 



1 82 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

has caused a cessation of militancy. Its resump- 
tion would in any case be difficult, since a period 
of reflection can only impress upon its organisers 
and supporters the errors of their past conduct. 
That conduct has resembled the conduct of the 
Germans in the lands which they have invaded; 
it has been directed to create a reign of terror 
in order to secure the granting of demands made. 
Such a course of action tends to defeat its own 
object by creating a spirit of undying hatred; 
at the present moment, it is the more fatal as 
being opposed in its very essence to the prevalent 
spirit of toleration, to which alone the feminists 
can look for success. 

That success will be in a large measure attained. 
The war will produce greater harmony between 
nations, between political parties and between 
classes; it will produce also a greater harmony 
between the sexes. Each will realise more fully 
its need of the other. Men will have died in 
thousands in defence of their womenfolk ; women 
will have faced hardships and dishonour worse 
than death that they might bring comfort to 
those who have suffered for them. The path 
will be opened for mutual concessions, for the 
establishment not indeed of absolute but of 
practical equality, for the removal of those 



FEMINISM 183 

abuses of which the existence is generally 
admitted. 

The war will be followed by that grant of the 
franchise which has long been felt to be inevit- 
able, though it has been delayed by the militant 
agitation. Reform in the law with the object 
of placing the two sexes on the same footing will 
be accomplished. The way will be prepared for 
the solution of that mass of problems which 
revolves round the question of female labour, 
and that solution will be reached not by the 
dictation of one sex but by the co-operation of 
both. 

But the most important recognition of equality, 
and that which will have the most far-reaching 
effects, will be brought about by the changed 
nature of mankind. In all ages and in all 
countries, a different standard of morality has 
existed for men from that which has existed for 
women. The distinction admits of an obvious 
and a plausible justification, but it is yet based 
neither upon pure reason nor upon justice. For 
its existence women have been largely responsible ; 
it is notorious that no one is so intolerant of the 
moral failings of her own sex as a good woman, 
no one so eager to secure the social ostracism of a 
feminine sinner. To the influence of women, in 



1 84 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

fact, is due the pardon of men who are guilty of 
vice, and the condemnation of women similarly 
guilty. But both sexes will learn a deeper and 
truer sympathy as a result of the present war. 
They will not, indeed, excuse vice, or strive to 
identify it with virtue; but they will remember 
that temptation comes not equally to all, and 
they will learn the blessedness of forgiveness. 
And herein will be found the remedy for much 
of that evil which is so legitimately deplored. 
Many women, who have fallen ever lower and 
lower, have owed their misfortunes to the in- 
tolerance of their mothers and sisters. Dread 
has driven them to concealment; necessity for 
concealment has forced them to abandon that 
chance of recovery which their home might have 
afforded them. They have drifted into deeper 
seas of temptation; their penitence, sincere 
enough, has not availed to save them in face of 
their inability to undo the past ; social ostracism 
has wedded them to a life of sin. All might 
have been avoided, if those who had not fallen 
had been ready to make allowance. Such 
readiness will now be forthcoming; a woman, 
guilty of one act of haste or passion, will receive 
that indulgence which is already extended to 
men in like case. Those barriers between the 



FEMINISM 1 85 

sexes, which nature has established, cannot be 
removed; the growth of toleration, resulting 
from the present war, will remove those barriers 
which have been erected by the perversity and 
intolerance of mankind. 



XI 

CULTURE 

In all their attempts to alienate neutral opinion 

from the allies, the German publicists have put 

forward more especially one particular contention. 

They have asserted that Germany is the armed 

apostle of Kultur ; they have declared that the 

world is threatened by a wave of Slav barbarism, 

and that England is a traitor to the common 

cause of human enlightenment. Germany is 

fighting the battle of the race; she is defending 

all that men should hold most sacred. As she 

has been the foremost champion of civilisation 

in the past, so now she is ready to expend all her 

treasure and all her blood, if so she may prevent 

that return to the dark ages which would follow 

upon the victory of Russia. All those, therefore, 

who value the progress of mankind should rally 

to the support of Germany; a support which 

she demands as a right, since upon her and upon 

her ruler has devolved the mantle of Charlemagne. 

There is no reason for supposing the German 

publicists to be insincere in this statement of 
186 



CULTURE 187 

their case; there is no reason for supposing that 
they doubt the supreme merit of their culture 
and the barbarism of their enemies. They have 
their adherents beyond the borders of Germany. 
Even in England there are many who dread the 
victory of Russia, who view with profound regret 
the necessity which has ranged Anglo-Saxon 
and Slav together against the Teutons. In 
many lands, German pre-eminence in culture is 
freely admitted. It is believed that, whatever 
may be the origin of the present war, whatever 
may be the justice of the allied cause, at least 
the leadership of civilisation has long rested with 
the German race. 

The services which that race has rendered 
to mankind cannot be denied. In research of 
all kinds, the Germans are certainly pre-eminent ; 
their accuracy and diligence are beyond dispute. 
In music, they have long held almost undisputed 
sway; they have given to the world many of its 
most profound philosophers. German education 
is notoriously efficient. But when all this has 
been conceded, it must also be conceded that 
German culture labours under very serious 
disadvantages. The Germans excel rather at 
compilation than at the higher arts of selection 
and criticism; their genius is adaptive and 



1 88 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

painstaking rather than creative. With them, 
inexhaustible patience has been a substitute for 
inspiration. It almost seems as if the prevailing 
militarist spirit has extended its baleful influence 
even over learning; the Germans seem almost 
to have attempted to organise knowledge as they 
have organised an army, to drill the sciences as 
they have drilled their conscripts. Thus they 
have laboured to degrade history to the mere 
chronicling of events; accumulating facts, they 
have been barren of ideas, and though they have 
produced admirable editions of original authori- 
ties and scholarly versions of documents, their 
criticism, when it has attempted to pass beyond 
mere discussion of authenticity, has possessed 
at most a secondary value. Great as have been 
their services to the cause of human knowledge, 
the Germans have neither acquired nor will they 
ever acquire that monopoly of culture to which 
they lay claim. 

For culture is international, not national. Its 
progress and development can only be rapid 
when it is favoured by the support of the diverse 
genius of different races. Each race has its 
part to play in the extension of civilisation and 
of knowledge. To whatever branch of learning 
attention may be turned, it will be found that 



CULTURE 189 

other nations have made contributions no less 
valuable than those made by the Germans. 
Without regarding the vast achievements of other 
races in the more or less distant past, it is worth 
while to remember that radium was discovered 
by a Frenchwoman, wireless telegraphy by an 
Italian, the periodic law by a Russian, the 
telephone by an American, the X-rays by an 
Englishman. In art and architecture, the 
Teutonic races are inferior to the Latin; even 
in music their monopoly is not unchallenged. 

It has been said that it requires a German to 
discover the facts of history, an Englishman to 
select those which are of importance, and a 
Frenchman to reveal their meaning. And this 
remark pointedly illustrates the intellectual inter- 
dependence of the different nations. One race 
produces men with the requisite patience, another 
the men with the necessary power of distinguish- 
ing between essentials and non-essentials, a third 
the men with imaginative capacity. A French- 
man would tend to produce attractive fables 
rather than history; an Englishman would tend 
to produce a carefully arranged and colourless 
summary, the German a vast compendium of 
unrelated data. Neither one of the three races 
would achieve much without the others. But 



190 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

working together, each produces something of 
value; their co-operation results in an increase 
in human knowledge and in the progress of 
civilisation. 

And not only is it true that the Germans have 
no monopoly of culture; it is also true that in 
their culture there is a singular defect. The 
race is characterised by a general lack of a sense 
of humour, and this lack is greater in the Prussian 
section of the race than in any other. The comic 
papers of the German Empire are distinguished 
rather by vulgarity than by wit ; they exaggerate 
the worst characteristics of French humour, 
without possessing the redeeming qualities of 
grace and delicacy of expression. A Frenchman 
can write so charmingly of a sewer that the 
reader forgets the unpleasantness of the subject 
in delight at the beauty of the treatment; a 
German writes so realistically that the very air 
is contaminated. But this realism is little more 
than crudity; the beauty and joy of life are for- 
gotten in insistence upon its horrors and sordid- 
ness. Humour is vulgarised, or rather, the humour 
is to seek. In all their literature there is a certain 
pomposity, a certain exaggeration of detail, which 
reduces its merit even when it does not nauseate. 

In their everyday life, the Prussians display 



CULTURE 19 

this same lack of a sense of humour. No other 
government could have made itself the laughing- 
stock of Europe as has that of William II. Pro- 
secutions for Use-majeste have amused the world; 
ridiculous penalties have been imposed upon 
those who have dared to smile at the antics of the 
" War-Lord " or who have declined to take the 
officer caste seriously. Yet if culture be real, if 
it possess any true worth, it must enable men to 
take wide views; it must help them to recognise 
their own foibles and follies, to appreciate a 
joke against themselves. This the German people 
appear to be unable to do ; they even lament the 
capacity in others. Their newspapers have taken 
English soldiers to task for daring to jest about 
war; they have rebuked English statesmen for 
using the phraseology of sport to illustrate the 
present crisis. It would appear to be a sin to 
smile at the chosen people of God. Wit must be 
controlled from Potsdam; laughter should pro- 
ceed by sections, at the word of command. In 
the matter of humour, Germany certainly enjoys 
no undisputed pre-eminence. 

Even, however, if the German race did possess 
that pre-eminence which they claim, that mono- 
poly of Kultur, the victory of the allies would not 
necessarily be a triumph of barbarism. They 



192 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

have not the power, nor is it their desire, to sub- 
jugate the German people. They aim only at 
the overthrow of a ruling caste, of Prussian mili- 
tarism. They are fighting against Prussia rather 
than against Germany, and the south Germans 
have been drawn into this war only because they 
have also been deluded by the ruling section. 
That section has also the least claim to represent 
German culture. Ethnographically, the Prussians 
are rather Slav than Teutonic; the southern 
Germans look to Vienna rather than to Berlin, 
and tend to deny the claim of their actual rulers 
to the possession of the German name. Nor 
have the Prussians taken the lead in the intel- 
lectual development of Germany. Music is the 
form of art which comes nearest to being a mono- 
poly of that race; not a single great musician 
has been a Prussian. Even in the field of politics, 
the makers of modern Germany have not been 
generally Prussians; the most representative 
portion of the German race is to be found south 
of the Main. And the destruction of Prussian 
militarism would prepare the way for the ascend- 
ancy of the south, nor would culture suffer greatly 
by the transference of political power to the hands 
of those who take a kindlier and happier view of 
life and of mankind. 



CULTURE 193 

The victory of the allies, in fact, will be no 
defeat of culture. It will rather secure its wider 
prevalence. In the German Empire, the in- 
tellect will be freed from the incubus of militar- 
ism, as it has been freed in the past from the 
cramping influence of a corrupt and intolerant 
Church and from slavish imitation of French 
models. The true German people will assert 
itself; gaiety will return to lands long oppressed 
by the seriousness of a dominant class, so jealous 
for its supremacy that it has not dared to permit 
a smile. It has been remarked that the French 
Revolution killed laughter; the triumph of the 
allies will do something to bring laughter back 
to life. 

But not only will Germany itself profit by 
being freed from hampering restrictions; the 
whole world of culture will equally benefit. The 
triumph of toleration is the victory of the highest 
intellectual qualities. International sympathy 
will increase at the expense of international 
jealousy. Mankind will realise its common 
civilisation more fully; it will appreciate better 
the divergent merits of different races. Energy 
which has been expended upon the perfection of 
engines of destruction will be diverted into more 
beneficial paths. All nations, united in a common 

N 



194 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

brotherhood, will be enabled to labour, each in 
its own sphere, for the general advancement of 
mankind. 

The allies, moreover, are the champions of 
political liberty. But the greatest enemy of in- 
tellectual progress has always been the domina- 
tion of a ruling class. In the Middle Ages, the 
Church crushed independent thought that heresy 
might not arise ; the literature of southern France 
was sacrificed that the Albigensians might not 
propagate their opinions; the tortures of the In- 
quisition long awaited those who dared to exercise 
openly their right of private judgment. Censor- 
ship of the press has, in more recent times, been 
a recognised adjunct of despotism, and even 
when liberty has been theoretically attained, a 
ruling class has still laboured to prevent its full 
development, silencing, as far as possible, the 
free expression of opinion and checking the 
growth of education. 

So long, indeed, as a ruling class exists in any 
country, culture in that country will be hampered ; 
all the influence of the rulers will really be directed 
to this end. Education and learning themselves 
will be prostituted to the political necessities of 
the governing class; the fiction that some 
matters must not be discussed will be zealously 



CULTURE 195 

propagated. A servile press will be trained to 
conceal or to deny notorious vice or ineptitude 
in a king, to credit royalty with a host of non- 
existent virtues. All that deserves respect and 
honour gains by the freest publication of the 
truth; a ruling class, since it deserves neither 
respect nor honour, naturally dreads such free 
publication. But the perpetuation of a lie is 
inimical to all intellectual development; culture 
cannot flourish where political or dynastic con- 
siderations compel silence even on matters of 
public import. The imposition of such silence 
has been specially characteristic of Germany; 
William II. has endeavoured in this way to con- 
ceal his many absurdities. The defeat of Prussia 
in the present war will free men's tongues in 
Germany and in all other lands; henceforth, it 
will be impossible to check the open expression 
of opinion. For political reasons, states have 
laboured to fetter the intellect; with the true 
establishment of political liberty, they will have 
neither the power nor the desire to do so in the 
future, and culture will increase with the increase 
of freedom. The present war will accomplish 
that which the Reformation and the French Re- 
volution laboured to accomplish ; it will complete 
the emancipation of the human intellect. 



XII 

RELIGION 

There is a certain reluctance at the present day 
to insist upon the religious aspect of political 
questions; there is a certain readiness to shelve 
all discussion of such an aspect and to assume 
that the days when religion was a factor in 
politics have passed. Yet, at least since the 
foundation of Christianity, there have been few 
wars in which there has not been a religious 
element or which have been barren of effect upon 
churches. The very triumph of the barbarian 
invaders of the Roman Empire facilitated the 
spread of the Christian faith. The victories of 
England in her many mediaeval wars with France 
prepared the way for that destruction of the 
temporal supremacy of the Pope which was 
finally accomplished at the Peace of Westphalia. 
The Romantic Revival was not the least im- 
portant of the causes which led to the downfall 
of Napoleon ; the occasion of the Franco-German 

War enabled the Italian government to reduce 
196 






RELIGION 197 

the Pope to the position of " prisoner of the 
Vatican." 

To this general rule, that in all wars there is a 
religious element, the present conflict offers no 
exception; to neglect that element would be to 
ignore one of the most important aspects of the 
struggle. The German Empire is inspired by a 
new gospel. Whether from sincere conviction, 
or from a belief that the end justifies the means, 
the German people have adopted as their prac- 
tical creed the ideal " Deutschland uber Alles." 
They have turned from the worship of a bene- 
ficent Deity to the cult of efficiency; material 
strength has become with them a fetish. All 
actions, whether it be the violation of a treaty or 
the sacking of a town, the terrorisation of civilians 
or the destruction of historic monuments, are to 
be justified on the supreme ground of necessity. 
The domination of Germany is the end which 
excuses all means, the ideal which guides all con- 
duct, the practical religion of the German people. 

In so far as Christianity is a creed of self- 
sacrifice and of care for others, this ideal is anti- 
Christian. Nor is this the less true because it 
has gained the support of German ecclesiastics, 
because the policy of the government is approved 
and applauded by the clergy of the German 



198 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

Empire. Since the conversion of Constantine 
the Great, no government, however base and 
corrupt, however barbarous and tyrannical, has 
ever lacked clerical support. In the history of 
England alone, there are numerous instances of 
the fact that the favour of the Church is not 
invariably given to the cause of justice or of 
liberty. John was able to employ clerks to con- 
fiscate the goods of their fellows; the Stuarts, 
labouring to undo the work of previous centuries 
and to establish a despotism, found ecclesiastics 
enthusiastic in their favour. The doctrine of 
passive obedience was invented for the benefit of 
would-be absolute monarchs, and Charles I. was 
exalted into a saint by a servile episcopate. The 
votes of the bishops in the House of Lords have 
constantly been given against attempts to amelior- 
ate the lot of the poor. Nor has the established 
Church of England been distinguished for its 
tolerance, though it may possibly claim with 
justice to have been less intolerant than almost 
any other church. 

But in actual fact, a very clear distinction 
must be drawn between Christianity and Christian 
churches. The former can exist without organisa- 
tion; it is a belief, a code of moral principles. A 
church must be organised; its very existence 



RELIGION 199 

demands a certain measure of intolerance, and 
entire absence of coercion would produce anarchy 
and death. It is, however, impossible for any 
church to compel obedience without some assist- 
ance from the civil power; the greater the degree 
of the assistance so rendered, the stronger will be 
at least the public position of the church. Hence 
it is not surprising that ecclesiastics should have 
generally welcomed an extension of the powers 
of government, and more especially of the power 
of a king. The interests of a despotism or of a 
ruling class are identical in most instances with 
those of a dominant church; to both, the repres- 
sion of freedom of speech is an invaluable asset, 
and to both, the propagation of the fiction of 
divine right seems necessarily to lend authority. 
William II. is the modern exponent of that out- 
worn fallacy; he is the professed and ablest 
champion of the monarchical cause. It is only 
natural that the Lutheran Church should rally 
round a man whose victory would seem to promise 
to it an ascendancy such as it has never yet en- 
joyed even in Germany and the north. But it by 
no means follows that the ideal for which the 
German Empire stands is a Christian ideal, or 
that it has any actual connection with Christianity. 
The allies contend for a wholly different ideal. 



200 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

They have adopted as their own the very prin- 
ciples upon which the German publicists have 
tended to pour such contempt. A solemn under- 
taking is to them something worthy of regard. 
Efficiency may be bought too dearly; material 
advantage purchased at too high a price. Force 
is not the only valid argument; the survival of 
the fittest is at best a lamentable commentary 
upon the imperfection of man and the blindness 
of nature. The allies champion the weak against 
the strong, equality against domination, liberty 
against tyranny. They are the enemies of in- 
tolerance; they are the exponents of toleration. 
Their victory will, therefore, be in a large 
measure the victory of Christianity, and it will 
be this the more because it will not be the victory 
of any particular church. In the past, and so 
far as Christianity is to be identified with sym- 
pathy for others and with toleration, the triumph 
of a religious party has been rather detrimental 
to the cause of religion. Thus after the Great 
Rebellion England was exposed first to the 
tyranny of the Puritans and then to that of the 
restored Church; the triumph of Protestantism 
in the Revolution was marked by rigorous per- 
secution in Ireland. It is, perhaps, to the 
advantage of the Christian faith, as opposed to 



RELIGION 201 

Christian churches, that the allies represent 
different creeds. Not only will their co-opera- 
tion tend to enable them to appreciate the merits 
of each other's beliefs, but their victory will be 
that of the broad principles of Christianity rather 
than of those paltry dogmas by which the broad 
principles have often been obscured. 

The churches, however, will also be affected by 
the war; the victory of toleration will influence 
religious organisations no less than political. The 
Protestant churches will tend to approach more 
nearly to the original principles of the Reforma- 
tion; to admit that right of private judgment 
to which they owe their foundation and which 
by their conduct they have so persistently denied. 
The Orthodox Church will incline towards a 
greater breadth of view. Whereas its influence 
in the Russian Empire has hitherto been on the 
side of tyranny, it will now be exerted to further 
the growth of liberty. 

But it is upon the Roman Church that the 
effect of the war will be most profound. That 
church has, with some injustice, been not un- 
usually regarded as the champion of intolerance. 
It would be idle to deny the vices of many of its 
rulers or the crimes which have been committed 
in its name; the horrors of the Inquisition are 



202 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

well known, and the world has seen recent 
examples of a persecuting spirit in such decrees 
as that " Ne Temere." It would, however, be a 
misunderstanding of the Roman Church to assert 
that such persecution is inseparable from its 
whole spirit. In its essence, the Roman Church 
presents that aspect of Christianity which in- 
volves the most complete submission to the will 
of God; it insists upon simple faith, upon 
humility and upon obedience. In the hands of 
some of its exponents it goes further than this; 
it labours to proselytise, and by the very per- 
fection of its organisation it is rendered the more 
intolerant of any variation from authorised 
belief. Attention to detail has partially obscured 
the essential. 

The present war offers to the Roman Church 
an unique opportunity. Its power to coerce will 
be sensibly reduced by the practical disappear- 
ance of Austria-Hungary, the leading Catholic 
power; its political influence will be minimised; 
it will be driven to rely upon persuasion rather 
than upon force. And herein lies the occasion, 
ready to be seized; an occasion which, if duly 
used, will enable Benedict XV. to go down to 
posterity as one of the greatest of the Popes. It 
is an opportunity to infuse a new spirit of toler- 



RELIGION 203 

ance into the Church; to abandon for ever those 
political ambitions which have in the past proved 
to be a snare and a delusion; to adapt itself to 
the new spirit of the age and to prove that in the 
new era upon which the world is entering there 
is still room for childlike faith and submission to 
an Almighty. 

The policy which should be adopted to secure 
this end is easy to describe; reconciliation with 
the kingdom of Italy, a less severe attitude 
towards the more liberal minded of the Church's 
children, the renunciation of those methods of 
conversion which have excited the alarm and dis- 
trust of mankind. It is not too much to expect 
that the opportunity will be taken. In the past 
the Roman Church has never failed to profit from 
the crises in her history. She rather gained than 
lost at the Reformation by the withdrawal from 
her communion of races which were unsuited by 
temperament and the circumstances of their 
national life for sincere acceptance of her doc- 
trines. When the Church was threatened by 
man's passion for learning, she was saved by the 
Society of Jesus, which proved that Catholicism 
and intellectual activity were not necessarily in- 
compatible. Benedict XIV. was distinguished 
for his conciliatory attitude; it is almost certain 



2o 4 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

that the present Pope adopted this predecessor's 
name with deliberation, and that Benedict XV. 
will acquire a similar reputation. 

Whatever may be the fate of churches, tolera- 
tion will triumph in the present war. Members 
of different religious sects will realise that there 
is work for all to do; they will insist upon their 
harmony rather than upon their divergence; 
they will appreciate the fact that all are agreed in 
wishing to do that which is best for the human 
race. Differences of opinion will continue; not 
every man will accept this or that interpretation 
of the Christian ideal. But differences will be 
respected and tolerated ; the triumph of a particu- 
lar church will be less regarded than the elevation 
of mankind. 

For the change in human nature, which the 
war will serve to effect, will involve an increase 
of sympathy, and the Christian religion will gain 
where churches may appear to lose. Men will 
be inspired rather by the ideal of love for their 
fellow-men than by devotion to dogmas. They 
will find their guidance rather in the Sermon on 
the Mount than in the more denunciatory pas- 
sages of the Pauline epistles ; they will think less 
of damnation and more of salvation, less of them- 
selves and more of others. Toleration will replace 



RELIGION 205 

conflict, and war, already rendered practically 
impossible by the resolution of mankind, will be 
more than ever prevented by the removal of one 
prolific source of quarrel, the hostility of divergent 
creeds. Christianity, considered as the gospel 
of peace and mutual assistance, will have gained 
a noteworthy triumph when the armies of the 
allies have won their final victory. 



XIII 

SOCIAL REFORM 

Nothing has been more universally recognised 
than the need for social reform, the existence of 
many evils urgently demanding remedy. The 
prevalence of misery and want, of vice and crime, 
is too patent to admit either of denial or of neglect, 
and all political parties are agreed that the removal 
of such stains upon the alleged civilisation of the 
race is one of the most important duties of govern- 
ment. Yet though there is this agreement as to 
the necessity for reform, though the action of the 
state has been seconded by private effort, though 
a mass of palliative legislation has been attempted, 
the practical result has been singularly disappoint- 
ing. It is not easy to prove that England to-day 
is a much happier country than was England a 
hundred years ago; there are not wanting some 
who roundly declare that she is far less happy. 

The cause of this failure to effect a complete 
reform must clearly be sought in the organisation 
of society. For any scheme of reform to have 

real success, it must first of all be inspired by true 
206 



SOCIAL REFORM 207 

sympathy, by a real understanding of the minds 
and feelings of those whom it is sought to benefit. 
But such sympathy and understanding can 
hardly exist where there is also insistence upon 
distinctions of class. Those who have the leisure, 
education and income necessary for the work are 
handicapped by the whole of their past life and 
training. A man may be filled with the most 
sincere desire to accomplish a task of reform, but 
he is hindered by the very fact that almost from 
his birth he has been really encouraged to thank 
God that he is not one of the " common people." 
Upon the poor and the vicious he looks with 
the deepest sorrow; that sorrow is tinged with 
contempt. Try as he may, he cannot fail to feel 
a certain conviction of his own superiority, to 
take to himself a certain degree of credit for his 
virtuous self-sacrifice. Into all private effort 
towards the remedying of social evils, there 
enters a certain element of pauperisation. The 
poor feel that their benefactors are stepping 
down, as it were, from some lofty position to 
assist them; they either resent such patronage 
or tend to lose their self-respect; in either case, 
the efforts of the reformer are not attended with 
really satisfactory results. Even the efforts of 
the state are hampered in the same way. A 



208 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

certain stigma attaches to those who accept the 
assistance offered to them by government; they 
are regarded as having sunk to a lower place in 
the social strata, and since in the existing order 
importance is attached to social position even 
by the very poorest, they suffer morally as a 
result. 

Nor does the vitiating effect of class distinctions 
end here. The mere existence of those distinc- 
tions serves to induce a number of evils which 
have been pointed out time and again. Men and 
still more women labour to create the impression 
that they belong to some " upper " class; they 
desire to appear as the social superiors of their 
neighbours. Up to a certain point, this is wholly 
admirable; anything which encourages a man 
to endeavour to rise out of that position in which 
he was born is so far good. But the influence 
of the idea of class leads men to attempt to rise 
in a false sense. Influenced by that idea, they 
take houses which they cannot afford to main- 
tain; they strive to live in a circle of richer 
neighbours. The attempt to " keep up appear- 
ances " has been and is the curse of thousands. 
It drives them to dispense with necessities that 
they may make a show of luxury; it forces them 
to resort to petty shifts; it induces them to 



SOCIAL REFORM 209 

imitate the vices of the wealthy and to abandon 
reasonable restraint. 

Those who have risen have been affected by the 
same curse. Their efforts have been directed to 
create a belief that they have not risen, that they 
have been born in a position of superiority. The 
hardest employers are generally those who have 
once been employees. It is not that their 
personal knowledge of the excuses of the idle 
enables them to detect malingerers with ease* 
It is rather that they wish at all costs to dissociate 
themselves from that despised class to which they 
originally belonged. 

And social reform has been rendered doubly 
difficult by the attitude of the alleged " upper 
class," lay and ecclesiastical. Eager to retain 
political power in its own hands, the ruling class 
has endeavoured to emphasise class distinctions. 
Forced to conciliate the democracy, it has 
appealed to the vices rather than to the virtues 
of the many; it has attempted to corrupt rather 
than to raise. In England, this is true no less 
than in other countries. The English aristocracy 
has been constantly recruited from the masses, 
and if it has in a measure preserved a democratic 
character, yet it has perhaps been driven to 
greater social tyranny. Having no definite title 



2io THE NATIONS AT WAR 

to rule, it has tried to create such a title by the 
invention of pedigrees; it has been affected by 
that very hatred of its origin which marks the 
employee who has risen to a position of command. 

And the clergy have, in general, been efficient 
allies of the lay rulers. Formerly, they en- 
deavoured to spread a belief in the doctrine of 
divine right, and though that doctrine has been 
practically abandoned as a political theory, yet 
its influence is seen to-day. An ingenious per- 
version of Christianity has been accomplished; 
it has been laid down that contentment with an 
existing position in life is a virtue, that discontent 
with the prevailing social order is a sin. And the 
clergy, more than any other one class, have set a 
pernicious example in encouraging the practice 
of " keeping up appearances." 

The idea of class distinctions has indeed 
hampered all proposals for social reform. To 
receive assistance has been regarded as deroga- 
tory; and though this serves a useful purpose, in 
so far as it maintains self-respect, yet it has made 
the task of ameliorating the lot of the poor 
infinitely more difficult. It has rendered almost 
impossible the giving of such slight and temporary 
help in a time of crisis as should enable a man to 
tide over the period of stress, since if he is so 



SOCIAL REFORM 211 

aided, his neighbours at once condemn him to 
social ostracism. No progress can, indeed, be 
made until class distinctions have been broken 
down, until a man's merit is gauged not by his 
wealth or by his parentage, but by his personal 
character. It must be recognised that all men 
are equal in rights; that the inequalities which do 
exist are less the outcome of justice than of the 
accidents of nature or the faults of government. 
It must be recognised that idle display and waste 
are to be regarded with contempt; men must 
learn to be ashamed rather than proud of the 
amount which they spend upon personal indul- 
gence, and to regard the ostentation of wealth 
as degrading to the wealthy. 

Such results could only come through a revolu- 
tion in human nature, and hence it has been held 
that they can never be attained. It has been 
argued that mankind will never be delivered 
from sorrow in this world; that the poor will be 
always with us. It is inevitable that poverty 
should continue; all men have not the same 
earning capacity, nor could it be desired that 
superior merit should not meet with a superior 
reward. But poverty has been rendered more 
grinding, both by the fact that it has been 

regarded as a disgrace and by the fact that the 

02 



212 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

desire to acquire a " social " position has served 
to emphasise the evils of an inadequate income. 
It is possible enough to recognise that ability 
to maintain a liveried servant is no proof of 
merit ; that no man deserves credit or reputation 
from the fact that he has inherited a large income 
or from the fact that he can trace his ancestry 
to the mistress of some king or to a Norman 
plunderer. And when this has been recognised 
by the generality of mankind, as it is already 
recognised by all who possess a shadow of intelli- 
gence, a great step will have been taken towards 
the solution of the social problem. Labour will 
increase in dignity; idleness will be the true 
source of disgrace. There will be the less desire 
for social position in all sections of the community, 
and hence many who are at present hampered 
and cramped by the supposed need for keeping 
up a certain position will be freed from much 
embarrassment. 

This mental revolution will be hastened by the 
war. The growth of a better understanding 
between classes will create a wider sympathy; 
the most exclusive cliques will be to a certain 
extent democratised by the necessities of the 
present crisis. Thus, the officers' mess in most 
regiments will be filled with former Serjeants and 



SOCIAL REFORM 213 

privates; the old exclusiveness will be for ever 
swept away. There will be everywhere a deeper 
sense of the vital things of life; men will realise 
their duty to their fellow-men more thoroughly, 
nor will they claim merit for performing that duty. 
Nor will the past attempts to make party 
capital from social legislation continue. Party 
spirit will in general be weakened, as it has 
already declined in face of the common danger. 
The character of legislation will become more 
national, and hence more efficient. There will be 
an obliteration of the old lines of party division, 
and there will be a similar obliteration of the old 
lines of class. Close contact will reveal to each 
the true character of the other. The so-called 
lower class will realise the merits and the defects 
of the so-called upper class. They will discover 
that the rich are not always vicious; they will 
discover also that they are not immune from 
faults, that the wealthy and the well-born are 
men of like passions with themselves. Revealed 
in their true character, for good or evil, the 
" upper class " will no longer be able to maintain 
the fiction of its intrinsic superiority. That 
waste which has resulted largely from a wish to 
emphasise the divergence of class will cease; 
extravagance will continue but will be minimised. 



2i 4 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

Luxury will rather be regarded as a vice than 
poverty. The war has afforded already an 
opportunity for reduction of expenditure, and 
with the restoration of peace the new simplicity 
of life will be generally maintained. 

Thus one great cause of social distress will be 
removed; the keeping up of appearances will 
be abandoned. Shabby gentility will disappear; 
men will live as they may, not attempting to 
conform to some arbitrary and unreal standard. 
Self-respect will be increased; servility will 
decline, for those who have in the past rather 
laboured to pauperise the masses will now be 
inspired with sympathy for them and with a 
genuine desire to raise them from distress. 

Morality will increase by the change in human 
nature. A large percentage of the immorality 
of England must be attributed to the existence 
of class distinctions. Those who have prided 
themselves with being members of an upper class 
have been callous as to the fate of women of a 
different social standing; though they would 
respect the virtue of their recognised equals, 
they have no respect for that of their supposed 
inferiors. But the spread of the idea of equality 
will serve to destroy this false opinion; it will 
also facilitate intermarriage between the different 






SOCIAL REFORM 215 

classes and hence reduce still further the existing 
distinctions between them. And women of the 
former lower class will be less ready to feel 
themselves complimented when a " gentleman " 
insults them; their passion for luxuries will be 
diminished, and they will have the less desire to 
pose as members of the wealthy class. That 
absence of self-respect which has been born of 
distinctions between class will be remedied, and 
one of the chief causes of immorality will be 
removed. 

Even the problem of population will be largely 
solved. Increased seriousness will produce also 
a greater sense of responsibility. The obligation 
not to bring into the world children who cannot 
be supported will be better realised; a sense of 
duty will limit the passions. The spiritual side 
of mankind will triumph over the animal. And 
the decline of luxury will free a large amount of 
capital for the work of production; production 
will increase, the demand for labour will grow. 
The life of man will be ordered upon more 
economic principles, but those principles will 
be refined by a deeper sympathy. 

The present war is being waged against the 
exponent of divine right, against a dominant 
caste. It is a people's war, a war for liberty 



216 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

The cause of freedom will triumph, and with 
freedom equality will triumph also. The artifi- 
cial barriers between man and man will be swept 
away, and with them will be swept away also 
many of the causes of human misery. The 
revolution will not be accomplished easily; the 
restoration of peace will not be the establishment 
of any Utopia. But in the future the world will 
progress steadily and not intermittently; men 
will no longer be driven to sigh that they are no 
better than their fathers. 



XIV 

THE FUTURE OF THE RACE 

Many have found the true essence of life in 
conflict; many have asserted that, if man were 
freed from all need to fight, he would be ruined 
morally and intellectually, and would sink into 
a state of coma, nearly akin to death. They have 
argued that men must always struggle with men ; 
that the very law of self-preservation demands 
that there should be strife between nations, 
between parties, creeds and classes. The evil 
of war is far outweighed by its good; by it 
human nature is refined and exalted, and the 
supreme sacrifice of life itself wins a truer and 
fuller existence for those who survive. The 
conflict of parties within a state develops the 
mental capacity of the nation; bitter as it may 
be, it serves to ward off the calamity of political 
death. Even the quarrels of religious sects pro- 
duce good; each is compelled to set or to keep 
its house in order, lest it should give just occasion 

to its rivals. The strife of class with class pre- 
217 



218 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

vents any degeneration into stagnant mediocrity. 
Pride of birth induces the practice of virtues 
which would otherwise cease to exist ; the honour 
accorded to wealth is an incentive to effort. In 
the mental, no less than in the economic, rela- 
tions of man with man vigorous competition acts 
as a stimulant and assists to promote real 
efficiency. 

To those who hold such opinions, the dawn of 
an era of peace would be rather a cause for regret 
than for rejoicing. The world would be delivered 
from material ills, only to experience moral ills, 
far more insidious and far more pernicious; it 
would suffer intellectual death. Optimism is the 
creed of fools; pessimism is the only possible 
attitude for the wise man. The future can be no 
brighter than the present; this war can confer 
no greater benefits upon the human race than 
have been conferred by previous wars. For, if it 
leaves the world as it is, if armaments must still 
increase, if civilisation itself is at the mercy of 
selfish ambition, then the war will have been 
fought in vain and mankind will also have lived 
in vain. But if it produces an era of peace, if the 
conflict of man with man should cease, a new evil 
will be called into existence. The race will die, 
because life is no longer worth living. The 






THE FUTURE OF THE RACE 219 

dilemma is complete; hope is useless, despair 
alone is sane. 

This dilemma, however, is unreal; such pessim- 
ism is needless. Nothing is more certain than 
that the world will be changed by the present war, 
or that conflict of man with man will cease. The 
peoples of Europe have not engaged in the greatest 
struggle of history without reason; they have no 
intention of permitting in the future the existence 
of those factors which have made the struggle 
possible. It is clear that even if Germany 
triumphed, the old order would still pass away. 
Preserving her own military power, she would 
use that power to impose her will upon a congeries 
of client states; the armaments of all actual or 
potential rivals would be limited. Her supre- 
macy would be that of a military caste, but it 
would crush militarism in all other lands. 

And if the victory of Germany would, in a sense, 
strike a blow at the very system by which that 
victory would have been secured, the triumph 
of the allies will strike a far more deadly blow. 
Even if the governments of the allied states were 
ready to be untrue to the ideal for which they are 
fighting, their peoples would still hold them to 
their professions. War is being waged against 
Prussian militarism; Prussian militarism will be 



220 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

destroyed. But no similar system will be created 
in England, France or Russia; men will not per- 
mit the establishment of a regime such as they 
will have attacked and defeated in the German 
Empire. Without the aid of a militarist spirit, 
however, war becomes impossible; war will, 
therefore, cease, and with its cessation the more 
subordinate forms of conflict will likewise dis- 
appear. Mankind will be inspired by the spirit 
of toleration, and that spirit is inimical to the 
violent conflict of man with man. 

Yet the human race will not be condemned 
to death from inanition. That man can live 
only if he fights with his fellows is a fiction, vile 
and pernicious. It may excite the admiration of 
militarists, who can find therein an excuse for 
war ; or of politicians, eager to defend their sub- 
stitution of violent partisanship for statesman- 
ship. It may appeal to religious bigots, who 
would justify their intolerance; to a would-be 
aristocracy, which would defend class rivalry 
and class tyranny. It may be adopted by 
employers and by employees, anxious to prove 
that their mutual hatred is justifiable. It has 
been cynically remarked that the waking thought 
of every Englishman is, " What can I kill to-day ?" 
It is, in effect the waking thought of every violent 







THE FUTURE OF THE RACE 221 

partisan, What idea can I kill to-day? And 
since murder is generally recognised as being a 
crime against divine law, it is not unnatural that 
all violent partisans should agree that to live and 
let live is to die. 

But the fiction is one which can make no appeal 
to any man who is inspired by love for his 
fellows; it is a fiction which cannot be credited 
by any man who is possessed either of reason 
or of insight. Man might, indeed, be doomed 
to fight always with man, if he had no other foes 
with whom to contend. But he has such foes, 
and they are well worthy of his steel, well able to 
resist his attacks, hard to defeat. Against these 
foes the race has warred throughout the ages 
without attaining to victory. This failure has 
been due in no small measure to that internecine 
strife in which mankind has been from time to 
time engaged. Human energy has been largely 
directed to the destruction of human life; it has 
been diverted from the struggle against the 
enemies of all mankind. The progress of nations 
has been constantly interrupted by their own 
or their neighbours' aggression. That influence 
for good, which might have been exercised by 
churches, has been impaired by the rivalry of 
sects; the clergy of all ages and of all nations 



222 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

have been more eager to secure the adoption of 
their own particular panacea than to effect the 
raising of the human race. Political parties 
have preferred an electoral victory to the welfare 
of the state. Their patriotism has been sub- 
ordinated to the interest of faction: they have 
called good evil, and evil good, rather than admit 
the existence of any virtue in their opponents. 
Bigotry and intolerance have coloured all the 
relations of man with man; the welfare of the 
race has been immolated on the blood-stained 
altar of prejudice. 

Such dissipation of energy could only be for 
the benefit of mankind if man had no enemies 
but his fellow-men. As it is, human development 
has been hampered; effort has been constantly 
misdirected. The end of that strife which has 
produced such evils will ensue upon the present 
war. Human ability and energy will be employed 
in the true service of mankind; conflict between 
man and man will cease. The new era will be 
one of war, but the war will be the struggle of 
the race against its eternal foes. Statesmen, 
scientists and theologians will lead the forces of 
civilisation against disease, physical and moral, 
against the ills resulting from the existing or- 
ganisation of society, against those impalpable 



THE FUTURE OF THE RACE 223 

enemies, victory over whom has as yet eluded 
humanity. 

The field of conflict is wide. It will be long 
indeed before medical science has diagnosed 
accurately the more obscure diseases of mind 
and body; the cure of those illnesses which are 
now classed as incurable will need years of 
patient research; the stamping out of consump- 
tion alone is a task requiring ceaseless effort. 
The world labours also under the burden of many 
economic evils. It is admittedly intolerable 
that some should possess a superabundance of 
the world's good things, while others are enduring 
positive want; that thousands should be con- 
demned to pass their lives in single rooms and 
in dark, cheerless and insanitary houses. It is 
incredible that such conditions must obtain 
for ever; the discovery of a remedy should not 
be beyond the ability of statesmen. Hitherto, 
the work of combating such evils has been 
interrupted because vested interests and class 
prejudice have combined with party feeling to 
obscure the issue and to discredit any suggested 
reform. The finding of a solution will in the 
future prove to be enough to occupy the attention 
and tax all the skill of politicians and publicists, 
even though they have no longer to counteract 



224 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

the hostile designs of other states or to devise 
new terms of abuse with which to flagellate their 
political rivals. In vice of all kinds the race 
has a foe, insidious and powerful. If the churches 
cease to bicker, if they no longer wallow in " the 
mud of religious controversy," the ministers of 
religion still need not fear that they will be 
doomed to inactivity. That energy and in- 
genuity which are now expended in labouring to 
identify the Church of Rome with the " scarlet 
woman," or in attempts to prove apostolic 
succession, will find the fullest scope in the less 
exciting, but possibly more beneficial, work of 
promoting the increase of virtue and of defeating 
vice by the destruction of its causes. 

Even if such physical, economic and moral ills 
were successfully overcome, the field for effort 
would still be almost limitless. New beauties 
in art, literature and music may be created; it 
is hard to believe that a time can ever come 
when such creation need cease. The undoing 
of past errors itself requires both energy and 
devotion. The world has been disfigured by the 
hand of man, in obedience to the inevitable 
demand for speed of construction and cheapness. 
Acres have been covered with unsightly slums, 
street after street of gloomy houses has been 






THE FUTURE OF THE RACE 225 

erected, and the modern world has realised too 
late the evil which has arisen. But though 
such palliative measures as the prohibition of 
back-to-back houses have been found possible, 
insuperable obstacles seem to have appeared 
whenever a radical change has been mooted. 
Above all, the means have been lacking. Exist- 
ing political conditions have driven even the 
most unaggressive states to build up armaments 
and to prepare for war. The death of militarism 
will free mankind from the nightmare of the 
past; the load of armaments will be taken off 
the shoulders of the race, and many millions, 
which have hitherto been expended in training 
men to take life and in providing them with the 
weapons of destruction, will now be freed to 
afford means by which life may be made better 
worth living, by which sunshine may be brought 
to multitudes, whose lot to-day is drab and 
darkened. The forces of nature, too, are as yet 
unshackled ; the scope for invention is wide, and 
there are a thousand problems which have not 
even approached solution. 

When all this is considered, it is clearly idle 
to fear that human energy will be able to find no 
outlet, that the race will perish from inertia if 
strife between man and man ceases. It is more 



226 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

true that this energy will be redoubled; it will 
be directed into far more profitable channels. 
Through the ages men have largely pursued the 
evil, masquerading as the good; they have been 
obsessed by errors; the maxim Si vis pacem, 
para helium has secured an undeserved currency, 
to the detriment of the race. Mankind has been 
misled and deceived by the false opinions so 
zealously propagated by those who, whether 
from self-interest or mistaken conviction, have 
desired the continuance of conflict between 
nations, parties, creeds and classes. Some slight 
progress has been made, only to be followed by 
disastrous reaction; the world has often appeared 
to be condemned to pursue for ever a gloomy 
cycle of blunders. To any permanent advance 
the imperfections of human nature seem to have 
presented an insurmountable obstacle. 

But those who allege that mankind must for 
ever be the prey of evil are false prophets; they 
are the enemies of their kind, traitors to the 
sacred cause of humanity. Even in the past 
their falsity has been revealed, their treason 
unmasked. Two momentous events in modern 
history have proved that the search for happiness, 
for peace and goodwill, has not been wholly vain; 
they have shown that human nature can be 



THE FUTURE OF THE RACE 227 

changed, and changed for the better. The 
Reformation freed the intellect of mankind from 
the fetters of a decadent mediae valism ; the 
French Revolution expounded a new gospel of 
political liberty. Neither completed its task. 
The reformers sank into mere founders of churches ; 
the revolutionaries degenerated into military 
conquerors. Both alike forgot their original 
mission; both alike became false to those ideals 
for which they had been ready to suffer and to 
die. Yet their work was not in vain, long as it 
has tarried for completion. 

That completion is now on the eve of attain- 
ment. To-day, the world is torn by the last 
great struggle of man with man ; victory will rest 
with the champions of liberty, progress and 
toleration. The War of the Triple Entente will 
complete the work of the Reformation and the 
French Revolution. It will give to mankind 
freedom, political, religious and social. It will 
sweep into the limbo of forgotten fallacies all 
those fictions by which strife of man with man 
has been made possible and has been perpetuated. 
Those artificial barriers, which human perversity 
has erected between states, parties, creeds and 
classes, will be broken down; the age of hatred 
will pass away, and a new era of love be born. 



228 THE NATIONS AT WAR 

The future of the race is not dark with the black 
clouds of despair; it is bright with ardent hope, 
with the full assurance that the ideal, towards 
which the race has toiled, however haltingly, 
through all the ages, is at last to be attained. 



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